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SOME BORZOI TEXTS 


AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
Philip A. Parsons 


THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 
by James Mickel Williams 


PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
by James Mickel Williams 


OUR GOVERNMENTAL MACHINE 
Schuyler C. Wallace 


PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY 
J. Robert Kantor 


THE TREND OF ECONOMICS 
by Various Writers 


PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS 
Raymond T. Bye 


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COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. * PUBLISHED, 

1925 ° SET UP, ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE VAIL- 

BALLOU PRESS, BINGHAMTON, N. Y. ° PAPER MANUFACTURED 

BY DILL & COLLINS COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA, PA., AND FUR- 

NISHED BY MARQUARD, BLAKE & DECKER, NEW YORK * BOUND 
BY THE H. WOLFF ESTATE, NEW YORK. °* 


A NOTE ON THE TYPE IN 
WHICH THISSBOOK IS SET 


The type in which this book has been set (on the 
Linotype) is Old Style No. 1. In design, the face 
is of English origin, by MacKellar, Smith and 
Jordan, and bears the workmanlike quality and 
freedom from “frills” characteristic of English old 
styles in the period prior to the introduction of the 
“modern” letter. It gives an evenly textured page 
that may be read with a minimum of fatigue. Old 
Style No. 1 was one of the first faces designed and 
cut by the Linotype Company, and it is still one of 
the most popular. 


MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 
MY DEAR FATHER 


RILEY WALTER WILLIAMS 


WHOSE LOVE, PATIENCE, AND UNDERSTANDING 
HAVE STRENGTHENED ME THROUGH THE YEARS 
AND WHO HAS MADE POSSIBLE THIS RESEARCH 





CONTENTS 


Preface 

Introduction 

Rural Development 

The Methods of Rural Social Psychology 
The Neighbourhood and the Community 
Physical Environment and Psychological Processes 
Attitudes to the Weather and the Moon 
Traditional Family Attitudes 

The New Conditions 

The Relations Between the Sexes 

The Relations of Parents and Children 
Relations of Kinship 

Economic Attitudes 

Attitudes of Business and Professional Men 
Attitudes of Social Intercourse 

The Humorous Attitude 

Attitudes of Institutional Religion 
Attitudes of Personal Religion 

Attitudes of Public Education 
Intellectual Attitudes 

Juristic Attitudes 

Political Attitudes 


Reflections on Early Rural Life; Adherence to Custom 


Society and the Individual 

Social Consciousness and Conflict 
Economic Interpretations 

Our Rural Heritage and the National Life 


103 
III 
121 
128 
I5I 
154 
159 
174 
185 
192 
201 
210 
221 


228, 





PREFACE 


Social psychology is now an accredited science. Time was when 
social scientists gave it the cold shoulder but its importance as a uni- 
fying science has been discerned. Psychologists have ceased to have 
to do merely with the individual in the laboratory and are studying 
the individual in his group relations. Ethnologists no longer 
look askance at psychological interpretations of primitive culture but 
are aiming to discover the essential tendencies of the behaviour of 
primitive man. Students of modern society have centred on the 
psychological processes of family relations, industrial relations, poli- 
tics, professional and ecclesiastical relations and public education. 
The methods used have differed, owing to differences in viewpoint 
and to the inevitable uncertainties of a new field, but there is an agree- 
ment in the emphasis on observation and analysis of the facts of be- 
haviour at first hand as a starting point. The contributions already 
made disclose some agreement on essential processes, though with a 
diversity in terminology. 

It is doubtless true that social groups with a simple organization, in 
which behaviour presents the form of a series of closely related adap- 
tive complexes, are the most favourable fields in which to begin the 
study of social psychology. Primitive and rural groups for this reason 
especially attract the social psychologist. On the other hand, the 
essential processes are seen in society at all stages of complexity, and 
the complex helps to explain the simple, as well as the simple the com- 
plex. This book and the one that will follow are studies both of a 
simple and of a complex society. They depict the development of a 
rural population from its simple organization as isolated neighbour- 
hoods of equals to its present complex organization as an advanced 
agricultural population. 

This book is one of the inductive studies referred to in the preface 
to my Foundations of Social Science. It offers an analysis of the 
attitudes and beliefs that enter into our rural heritage. This is a 
psychological study and I treat only that part of the rural heritage 
that is susceptible of psychological analysis, This book will be 

1x 


x PREFACE 

followed by one on the expansion of rural life, which will show the 
rural heritage in process of adaptation to new conditions. The two 
- books depict one great process of social development and I shall 
occasionally refer to them together as “this work.” The last chapters 
of this book suggest psychological points of view for an interpre- 
tation of rural life but are not intended as a systematic interpretation. 
These books are concrete, descriptive, analytical. 

Our rural heritage is by no means a subject of merely historical 
interest. It is a living thing to-day. Modified by the unprecedented 
changes of the past fifty years it still is the psychological basis of rural 
civilization, and, as such, constitutes a good part of the psychological 
basis of our national life. A study of it is, therefore, of great 
practical importance, as well as of scientific interest. 

In these books I amplify the treatment of the field of social psy- 
chology begun in previous books. Rural social psychology logically 
comes first ina survey of social psychology. For the study of custom 
logically precedes the study of variations from custom, and rural life 
is particularly favourable for the study of the psychology of custom. 
Furthermore, the study of the psychology of agricultural organization 
logically precedes that of industry, business and the professions. For 
agriculture was once the prevailing occupation and rural attitudes have 
affected business, industrial and professional behaviour to such an ex- 
tent that we need to delineate the attitudes and beliefs of the rural popu- 
lation as a preparation for the study of business, industry and the 
professions. This book, therefore, logically precedes my Foundations 
of Social Science and my Principles of Social Psychology. It should 
be useful not only to those who teach the social sciences but also to 
teachers of history who wish to give their students some insight into 
the processes of history. 

This is a book for students and for the general reader. A previous 
knowledge of social psychology is not necessary in order to under- 
stand it. To assist the reader who would follow out lines of thought 
of the text, I have given citations to works on social psychology and 
rural life. These are given, not to lend authority to the text but 
to assist critical study. 

In preparing this book I have had the assistance of my parents and 
grandparents and of others in those generations, also of many people 
in my own, particularly of Professor Harry P. Coats of the College 
of the City of New York, who read parts of the manuscript and 
made many helpful suggestions. For assistance in the proof reading 


PREFACE xi 
I am indebted to Mr. Roy H. Ellinghouse, Instructor in History in 
Hobart College, Mr. Chauncey M. Louttit of Hobart College and 
Miss Emma M. Tower of William Smith College. 
James M. WILLIAMS 
Geneva, N. Y. Sept. 24, 1924. 





INTRODUCTION 


A famous teacher, when a student came to him with an idea, is 
said to have asked three questions: “What is your idea?” ‘What 
are your reasons-for it?’ “What of it?” These questions I think a 
reader has a right to ask of anauthor. Though this work is primarily 
descriptive and analytical, I propose here to give the reader some hints 
that will serve in interpreting the facts and analyses presented. 

What is the purpose of this work? So far as I know it is 
the first attempt that has been made to explain historically the 
attitudes and beliefs of a considerable part of the rural population of 
the United States. The usual historical material has to do with 
outstanding events, political parties, policies of government; it is 
the material that is found most abundantly in the documentary 
sources. Yet historians fall back on “public opinion” for explana- 
tions of their material, without explaining how public opinion explains 
it. This work aims to dissect various elements that have entered 
into the public opinion of the rural population of New York State. 
The elements will not be found to be essentially different in Illinois, 
Iowa or Minnesota, for the attitudes and beliefs of New York were 
carried to those and other western states, and the history of New 
York was there lived over again. 

Our method of treatment is that of a cross sectional description of 
attitudes and beliefs in three successive periods. It is in a sense, 
therefore, historical. But the description is not made to centre around 
particular historical events, as the anti-masonic crusade or the slavery 
controversy. That is, accredited historical events are not taken as 
points of departure, for the attitudes and beliefs of a population are a 
continuing force and what we call historical events are, in part, these 
attitudes and beliefs attaining an emotional intensity under stress of 
some crisis, and effectuating significant group action. So the point 
of approach is from the continuing forces, not the events. 

It is evident, then, why this work is entitled The Social Psychology 
of Rural Development. It is primarily a psychological study. There 
are other aspects of rural development than the psychological, but 


we are concerned with the psychological processes of development. 
xiii 


XIV INTRODUCTION 


To understand these, as will be shown in Chapters I and II, requires 
methods different from those required for a study of the history of 
agriculture and of the external aspects of institutions. To be sure 
one cannot understand all the causes of changes in agriculture and 
institutions without knowing the psychological processes; and, con- 
versely, one method of getting at the psychological processes is to study 
changes in agriculture and institutions and see what these imply as to 
changes in the underlying psychological processes. We are concerned 
with changes in agriculture and institutions only to that extent. 

So much for the idea of the work. How well it is carried out 
must not be judged without due consideration of the nature and 
difficulty of the task. It involves the study of a large body of sources 
of which but a fraction have been thoroughly gone over. A thorough 
research of all the sources is beyond the power of one person. Con- 
sequently further study will amplify and correct what has been done. 

Perhaps I should say something of the significance of the idea of 
the work before going on to the question, ‘“What of it?” The con- 
ception of the attitudes and beliefs of the common man as social 
forces in history does not by any means contradict a proper emphasis 
on the compelling rdle of special interests. It has elsewhere been 
shown that politics “is essentially a rivalry of economic classes and 
interests which support political parties for the sake of protecting or 
advancing their interests, and of party organizations the essential aim 
of which is to defeat the other party and ‘keep in power’ or ‘get back 
to power’. . . . Legislators in a democracy are elected by a majority or 
plurality of voters, but’? may fall under the control of special interests 
that constitute a very small minority.1 These special interests are 
represented both by men in public office and by private citizens and 
their activities constitute an essential process of government. They 
include not only business interests but farmers’ and labour organiza- 
tions. The unorganized individual has little or no political influence. 
He gets influence by coming to represent some interest. The opinion 
that officials listen to is the opinion of special interests. Every 
organized interest wants legislation of a more or less technical kind 
and the expert representatives of an interest are those to whose 
opinions legislators give attention. However, while the public opin- 
ion that counts is the complex and often conflicting opinion of 
special interests, at the same time important political problems are 
constantly arising that involve a consideration of ‘what the people 
will think.” How will they take the leasing of certain natural re- 


INTRODUCTION XV 


sources to certain special interests? How will they take the issuing 
of an injunction against a great labour organization? Consequently 
the executive of a calibre large enough to hold his political position 
for any length of time cannot let himself be carried away by the 
opinions of well organized and vociferous interests to the neglect of 
the ordinarily inaudible reactions of the unorganized masses. The 
great executive has an ear for the inaudible. He has a profound 
insight into the attitudes of the people, and his own attitude is that 
of an exponent of those desires of the people that the general well 
being requires should be satisfied. Thus, the proper emphasis on the 
role of special interests and of the great man in history is not by any 
means contrary to an emphasis also on the rdéle of the people. So we 
come back to the need of understanding their attitudes and beliefs. 

Unorganized, however, people seem incapable of progress. The 
decisive force in rural development has been leadership, including 
that of inventors, of research workers in and out of institutions, of 
teachers of agriculture, of certain rural magazines, of organizers of 
the farmers, and last but not least of the farmers of unusual mental 
initiative scattered throughout the rural communities, who have stood 
for agricultural progress among a people more or less given to pes- 
simism because of the hardships and disappointments of the farmer’s 
life. To these various forms of leadership are due: (1) the inven- 
tion of farm tools and machinery; (2) the long history of improve- 
ments of farm crops and farm animals by plant and animal breeders; 
(3) the improvement of agricultural methods by research workers; 
(4) the improvement of methods of conveying this information to the 
individual farmer; (5) the organization of farmers for co-operative 
buying, co-operative marketing and co-operative political action. 
Progress in the fourth and fifth points has been greater in the past ten 
years than in the entire preceding period, but the failures of the pre- 
ceding years prepared the farmers, and the accumulated experience 
taught the leaders the lessons necessary for the epoch-making organ- 
ization of the past ten years. 

We come now to the third question raised with reference to the 
idea of the work, “What of it?” This may mean, what is the signifi- 
cance of the work for sociological theory, or what truths of practical 
importance has the research revealed. As to its significance for 
sociological theory it should be another link in the chain of proof of 
the truth of the economic interpretation of society. According to 
this theory, material conditions and interests are essential in social 


Xvi INTRODUCTION 


change. This idea is not new to the farmer. The question of dollars 
and cents is apt to be prominent in connection with any proposed 
change. And changes unconsciously made, unconscious changes in 
attitudes and beliefs, are no less subject to material conditions. This 
work could have been written from a theoretical point of view, that is, 
first stating the theory and then making a judicious selection of facts 
in support of it, but I preferred to make the presentation descriptive 
and analytical, as my method of study has been inductive, and to 
indicate the fundamental functioning of the economic attitudes at 
various points and leave the reader to interpret the significance of this 
for an economic interpretation of rural development. The suggestion 
of an economic interpretation arouses resistance at the start but, after 
all, that is not a bad way to begin the reading of a book. For the 
essential thing is to get something beside the mere facts. And it is 
better for the reader to try to see the animal in the picture of rural 
life I shall give than for me to draw the animal. Let each chapter, 
then, be a problem in interpretation. 

We turn now to the second aspect of the question, ‘‘What of it?” 
What truths of practical importance has this research revealed? It 
is best to leave the reader to gather these from the text, because truths 
of importance from his or her point of view might escape me and 
truths important from my point of view would involve repeating a 
good deal of the text. But a word may be said about the practical 
importance of rural social psychology in general. There is now taking 
place in Europe and America the most widespread and well organized 
agrarian movement in history. It is not that rural populations are 
worse off than they have been. It is due to the fact that their com- 
munities are no longer isolated and they have been brought into in- 
timate contact with classes which have been becoming more rapidly 
prosperous than the farmer. Furthermore, within the rural com- 
munity some families have become more prosperous than others. As 
long as all were equally poor, no one was bothered by his poverty. 
Inequality causes discontent. Also, in America and in certain 
European nations the old-time neighbourliness and sense of solidarity 
of the rural community is on the wane and the farmer is thrown back 
on himself. Rural life does not give the contentment it once gave. 
The farmer is less absorbed in the mere process of work, in mere 
industriousness, and has become intent on the financial results of 
work. Hence the movement on the part of rural populations to 
improve their economic condition. ‘The means employed are economic 


INTRODUCTION XVil 


reorganization and the use of political power. Both in European 
nations and in the United States the tillers of the soil have become a 
political force whose demands for justice must be satisfied before there 
is economic or political stability. Consequently an understanding of 
the situation in the various nations—a world view of present civiliza- 
tion—requires an understanding of rural social psychology. 


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CHAPTER I 


RURAL DEVELOPMENT 


URAL social psychology is the psychology of people living 
in rural hamlets or in the open country. In America most 
farmers live in the open country, while in Europe and Asia 

they live more largely in hamlets. For this and other reasons the psy- 
chology of European peasants will differ somewhat from that of Amer- 
ican farmers. In America the village is the trading and social centre 
of the farming community round about and, because of this intimate 
relation between the village and the rural parts, a study of rural 
psychology unavoidably includes a study of the psychology of the 
village. 

The importance of rural social psychology becomes evident when 
we consider that a considerable part of the population of most of the 
great nations is rural. The meaning given the word rural by census- 
takers differs in the great nations. The United States census defines 
urban population as that residing in cities and other incorporated 
places having 2,500 inhabitants and over; the remainder is rural. On 
this basis the percentage of the total population of the United States 
which was rural in 1880 was 71.4; in 1890, 64.6; in I900, 60; in 
IQIO, 54.2; in 1920, 48.6. But this rural population so-called included 
mill villages and mining villages under 2500. In the census of 1920 
an enumeration was made of the population living on farms and it 
constituted 29.9 per cent of the total population.t In England and 
Wales about 3.2 per cent live by agriculture and fishing; in Ireland 
about 63 per cent by agriculture ; in Germany about 15.4 per cent by ag- 
riculture and forestry; in France about 21.5 per cent by agriculture; in 
Denmark about 30.4 per cent by agriculture, forestry and fishing; in 
Sweden about 46.9 per cent by agriculture, forestry and fishing; in 
Poland about 65.5 per cent by agriculture ; in European Russia over 84 
per cent by agriculture; in Japan 70 per cent by agriculture; and in 
India 72 per cent.” One reason for the importance of the subject of 
rural psychology is, therefore, the numbers and wide distribution of the 


rural population. Fifteen years ago President Butterfield emphasized 
I 


oe RURAL HERITAGE 


the practical value of a knowledge of social psychology for the rural 
population itself; since then the science has developed and its im- 
portance has increased. 

Rural social psychology is important also because the psychology of 
business, industry, and the professions cannot be understood without 
knowing rural psychology. Less than a hundred years ago the in- 
dustries of the United States were largely in the rural neighbourhoods 
and villages. So were a large proportion of the business and pro- 
fessional men. These men had rural attitudes, which have persisted 
in industry, business and the professions to this day. To-day many 
of these classes still live in the rural districts. A considerable pro- 
portion of the children in the public schools of the nation live on farms. 
These children grow up with the rural attitudes. A part of them 
continue to live in the rural districts but a considerable part become 
business and professional men and manual workers in the cities. They 
carry to the cities the rural attitudes. Wherefore, the psychology of 
the city cannot be understood without knowing that of the country. 

A knowledge of the social psychology of rural development is 
important because of the tendency of people who have the guidance of 
rural affairs to reason by historical analogies without regard to changes 
in psychological conditions in different periods of history. While it 
is well to be mindful of what has taken place in the past, in the formu- 
lation of policies for the present and future, the past cannot be under- 
stood without a knowledge of the psychological conditions of the 
past as compared with those of the present. Without this under- 
standing, a use of the past to interpret the future is apt to be more or 
less superficial analogy. 

An analysis of the social psychology of rural development should 
not be confined to one nation. However, the data are very meagre, 
even for the United States. The source books on rural sociology 
contain scarcely anything on rural social psychology, and, with the 
exception of Thomas and Znaniecki’s great work, monographic studies 
of rural communities are almost wholly concerned with external as- 
pects of social organization. Wherefore the time for a thorough- 
going treatise on the psychology of rural development is not yet. 
This work is merely a suggestion of its possibility. What is needed 
are psychological studies of typical communities all over the world to 
serve as the basis for such a work. | 

In the making of such studies it would be well to have in mind 
some theory of development. Such a theory will at first touch only 


RURAL DEVELOPMENT 30 


the most general aspects. For the developments of different nations 
differ in important respects. For instance, European observers have 
noted that the American farmer differs from the European in being 
more individualistic and enterprising.* In Europe and Asia the 
farmer has been subordinate to this landlord, or to his family and 
village community. And in some nations the dense population has 
condemned the farmer to comparatively small holdings.6 So the 
social psychology of the rural development of different nations will 
differ in important respects. But all developments seem to have one 
aspect incommon. There was a long period of pronounced adherence 
to custom succeeded by a weakening of this adherence. This change 
was due to the fact that the rural community ceased to be isolated 
and largely self-sufficient and was thrown into contact with the outside 
world. This in turn was due to the development of modern industry, 
which has not been confined to the United States and the nations of 
western Europe but, toward the close of the nineteenth century, became 
marked in the nations of Eastern Europe and in some nations of 
Asia.* The development of transportation and of manufacturing 
and mining, the emigration of youths from the rural districts to the 
industrial centres, the influence of these emigrants on their former 
associates in the country, the effect of this in changing the standard 
of living in the country, these were some of the events that caused 
the weakening adherence to custom. In the United States agricultural 
prosperity stimulated the tendency to uncustomary behaviour ; in some 
European nations and in India excessive taxation and rents and the 
voracious money lender made adversity and discontent rather than 
prosperity and good feeling the psychological state that opened the 
mind to suggestions of change. The tendency toward change was 
increased by migration from one nation to another. The migration 
of peasants from European nations to the United States resulted in 
these immigrants stirring those who remained behind out of the 
lethargy of centuries of customary subservience. The immigrants 
wrote to those in the homeland accounts of life in the new country, 
sent them money, returned to visit them, and the news of the economic 
freedom in the New World and of the unconventional life of a new 
country had its effect on the old countries. We are concerned, there- 
fore, with a psychological change that has taken place the world 
over, though it has different aspects in different countries and was 
later appearing in some countries than in others. 

Certain aspects of this change, in the European nations, have re- 


4 RURAL HERITAGE 


ceived the attention of scholars. The nation in which it has been 
studied with painstaking care is Poland. Thomas and Znaniecki in 
The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, distinguish three stages 
in the development of the Polish people. First there was a long period 
of adherence to custom in which the economic unit was the Polish 
family. This was followed by a breaking away from the traditions 
of the family, due to the improvement of means of communication 
with the outside world, the development of modern industry, the 
migration of peasants to the cities of their own nation and to other 
nations where they earned higher wages and changed their standard 
of living, then returned home to buy land. These conditions stirred 
in the Poles of the rural districts impulses for economic advancement, 
which resulted in changes in the old customs. The outstanding aspect 
of behaviour of the second period was, therefore, one of individualism. 
Finally came the development of co-operation, in which individualism 
was subordinated to new group ends, and the result was the rise of 
new forms of economic co-operation ® and of the idea of an independ- 
ent Polish state, which was realized as a result of the World War. 
Rural development in the United States has been much less uniform 
than in Poland, owing to the diversity of conditions. In the East 
it shows stages similar to those of the Polish development. For the 
settlers brought with them the Old World customs and were set in 
adherence to custom. With the westward migration, however, the 
customary attitudes weakened. Some communities of settlers in the 
Middle West were from the first extreme in their violations of 
family and religious customs; ® so their first stage resembled the second 
stage of Eastern rural communities, and was followed in some cases 
by a reaction to the customary, austere morality characteristic of 
the first stage of rural development in the East. It is impossible, 
therefore, to make any generalization covering the entire United 
States. But we do find three different types of rural behaviour. 
And the prevailing order of these types is, first, a period in which 
there was a pronounced adherence to custom, followed by a period 
of individualism characterized by impulsive departures from custom, 
and this by a period of re-adjustment and co-operation. When I 
published my American Town in 1906, there were beginnings of 
the third period in the East but it was further along in certain parts 
of the West. It is now in full swing in the East. In distinguishing 
these periods of development I do not imply a sudden transition from 
one type of behaviour to another. It is one continuous development. 


RURAL DEVELOPMENT 5 


The processes of adjustment are at work without ceasing. But at 
one time the behaviour of the population had the first aspect, at a 
later time the second, at a still later time the third. A new aspect does 
not come suddenly but the cumulative changes finally produce it. 
However it may appear suddenly—as co-operative marketing of farm 
products appeared and spread with astonishing rapidity in the later 
years of the third period. 

The theory of three stages of development is not proved for there 
have not been enough inductive studies either to prove or disprove 
it. It is merely that the meagre researches we have seem to justify 
its use as a convenient hypothesis. The reader may assume that I 
am merely deductively applying the standard theories of the psycholog- 
ical development of society. For they are in line with this theory 
of rural development. But in the American Town I gave an analysis 
of the psychological development of a certain rural community that 
showed a customary period succeeded by one of individualism. Since 
then the co-operative period has appeared in that community and in 
other communities of the state. Other researches point to similar 
developments in various parts of the United States. 

In analysing the psychological processes of rural development, I 
shall centre on New York in order to make the treatment intensive. 
As to the sources for such a study there are no books devoted to the 
subject. Some information can be gleaned from various books on 
other subjects, but one must rely largely on one’s own observation. 
In this respect I have been fortunately situated. I was born and 
grew up in a community of central New York and my ancestry in 
that community extends back three generations to its settlement 
shortly after the Revolutionary War. I lived a year in the Hudson 
River Valley, parts of several years in the northern part of the state, 
and now for fifteen years have lived in the western fruit section. 
For twenty-five years I have been studing the psychological processes 
of rural development in these various parts of the state. 

The aim of this study is to delineate the attitudes and beliefs of 
the early rural population. At the outset one is met by the fact that 
New York was settled by different nationalities—English, Dutch, 
Huguenots, Germans—and later came other peoples, Scotch, Irish, 
Welsh. The most important nationalities among the settlers of New 
York were the English and the Dutch. They differed in some respects, 
as will be shown later, but their essential attitudes were similar. 
And what differences there were diminished as time. went on. An-- 


6 RURAL HERITAGE 


other cause of differences in attitudes is different types of farming. 
For instance, the grain farmer is apt to be somewhat less scientific 
and more mechanical in his farming than the fruit grower, for grain 
farming requires somewhat less care in production and less study 
of the market in selling. Now, in the early decades of rural history, 
farming was not specialized, so the delineation of the attitudes and 
beliefs of the early period is a less difficult task than would appear 
to one cognizant only of modern conditions. 

The psychological development of rural New York falls into three 
periods. The first is one of pronounced adherence to custom. It 
extends from the rapid settlement of the rural parts and the clearing 
of land for cultivation after the Revolutionary War to about 1873, 
when the third generation had come to maturity and had inherited 
the wealth accumulated by previous generations and when railroads 
had come to ramify through the state, thus making the products of 
the farms generally available for export.*° The neighbourhood was 
no longer largely self-sufficient for the farmer was buying factory- 
made goods. Industrial centres were growing and these increased 
the demand for farm products. The second period extends from 
1874 to 1900. In 1874 the country, including the farming sections, 
had entered a period of financial depression which lasted until 1878. 
This depression resulted in certain important rural developments, 
among these the rise of a national society of farmers, the Patrons of 
Husbandry or the Grange as it came to be called. This organization 
started before the depression, but the hard times gave it a great impetus. 
Depression was followed by agricultural prosperity, and also by a 
notable development of manufacturing and a growth of cities. The 
emigration from the rural parts to the cities increased in the second 
period. Among those who remained in the country there were radical 
departures from custom, particularly in the pleasures of the population. 
The emigration of the young made farming more difficult, and the 
increasing competition with the West, where agriculture was develop- 
ing, made it less profitable. These and other conditions contributed 
to the rural maladjustment which, later in the period, in some sections 
attained the proportions of a demoralization and reached its extreme 
point in the depression of 1894-97. Soon after 1900 began those 
changes in agricultural organization which promise great improve- 
ments in farming conditions. So we date the third period from 1900 
to the present time. This was a period of readjustment, of the rise 
of state-wide organizations for the promotion of scientific farming 


RURAL DEVELOPMENT i 


and co-operative marketing. This development was stimulated by 
gasoline transportation as that of the second period was by steam 
transportation. To analyse the rural development thus outlined is 
the purpose of this work. This book covers the first period, that is, 
the development up to 1874, and The Expansion of Rural Life, already 
written and awaiting publication, will include the second and third 
periods. 

Psychological problems of rural development in the last analysis 
reduce to the question of changes in the relative importance of the 
essential tendencies of social relationship as a result of changes in 
material and other conditions. For instance, we find in the psychologi- 
cal development of New York acquisitiveness at first conspicuous, and 
assertiveness subordinate thereto. Then conditions changed and in 
the second period assertiveness became prominent in a variety: of 
social forms but particularly in social rivalry—more so in the 
villages than in the rural parts but to a certain extent in the rural 
parts also. Again conditions changed and, partly from sheer necessity, 
partly from the force of expert leadership, the rural individualism 
began to give way before the movement for co-operation. Though 
co-operation sprang in the last analysis from self-interest, it was a 
change in behaviour that required some thought, and it fostered 
sympathy between farmers. Those in the co-operative organizations 
felt themselves shoulder to shoulder against the foes of co-operation. 
So in the third period the sympathetic and intellectual tendencies had 
somewhat more play than before. This interpretation of rural de- 
velopment on the basis of changes in the relative importance of 
essential tendencies in response to changed conditions supplements 
that already given. For neither customary behaviour nor the im- 
pulsive variations and individualism of maladjustment nor readjust- 
ment and co-operation is explained until we have analysed the psycho- 
logical processes of those successive phases of development. 

The changes in the relative importance of essential tendencies of 
social relationship is seen not only in New York but in other rural 
parts of the world. Thomas and Znaniecki make explicit the fact 
that, in the first period of rural life in Poland, the attitudes centred 
around the ownership of the land that had been the visible symbol of 
the family’s social existence, and that no member of the family was 
at liberty to indulge any rivalrous impulse that was at variance there- 
with. Rivalry was subordinated to acquisition in the customary ways 
and under the rules of the family. Then conditions changed and 


8 RURAL HERITAGE 


there “awoke a powerful tendency to economic advance, a force 
which pushes you forward as one peasant expressed it. This tendency 
was the main factor breaking down the old forms and creating new 
ones. ...’ 11 The rivalrous tendency awoke because conditions had 
changed in a way to stimulate it. It had existed all the time as a pow- 
erful inner urge that needed only the encouragement of favourable ex- 
ternal conditions. This rivalrous tendency gave behaviour a new, in- 
dividualistic, venturesome aspect. Then again conditions changed and 
there developed projects of economic co-operation and national inde- 
pendence and this tended to subordinate individual rivalry to what 
Thomas calls “the moral point of view.” 1? That is, the individual 
became conscious of ends that required some control of his personal 
rivalrous impulses; this consciousness implied some increased play of 
the sympathetic and intellectual tendencies. 


CHAPTER II 


THE METHODS OF RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 


OCIAL psychology has yet to acquire a technique adequate to 
its task. Whatever technique may eventually develop, it must 
begin with observation of the facts of behaviour. How shall 

this be conducted? Some students of rural society have selected 
certain instincts from the classification furnished by psychologists and 
have sought to group facts of rural behaviour under these various 
instincts. This is putting interpretation before observation. My 
method has been to analyse rural behaviour as I found it. What 
one observes in the first instance are attitudes and beliefs, not instinc- 
tive processes. But my method is not merely descriptive. I begin 
with an extensive analysis of social attitudes and attempt some inter- 
pretation of the relation and functioning of these. Then the relation 
of attitudes to more fundamental processes can be investigated and 
changes in those processes through a period of time can be studied. 
This is not a complete technique but is, it seems to me, a sensible 
beginning. 

Social attitudes cannot be traced back into individual minds and 
analysed in any great detail as attitudes of individual minds unless 
one is in intimate contact with those individuals. Intimate contact 
is of course impossible in a study of the earlier stages of rural develop- 
ment. All we can do is to describe the social attitudes, their relations 
and functioning, without saying in how far those attitudes were in 
line with or contrary to the inclinations of particular individuals. 
The social attitudes are, thus, habits of thought and action that 
determine social relationships. These attitudes may be conscious and 
expressed as beliefs or they may be subliminal. Even in the case of 
attitudes expressed as beliefs it is hardly possible to state the different 
forms of the belief in individual minds. Attempts to do so end in 
a good deal of speculation. If a speculation sounds plausible still 
it may not fit all individual cases for the individuals of a group are 
not all alike. To be sure, there are often well defined differences in 
belief and one must be on the alert for significant variations from 

9 


10 RURAL HERITAGE 


prevailing beliefs because these variations may indicate the direction of 
change in social relationships. However, from the mere fact that 
individuals remain in a family or neighbourhood or church, they im- 
plicitly unite on certain attitudes and beliefs which, therefore, explain, 
in the first instance, their behaviour as a group. These are what I 
am going to describe. 

I shall write chiefly of social attitudes and beliefs. An attitude is 
a pronounced tendency to a certain way of reacting. Ideas are sub- 
ordinate to attitudes in the rural mind. For instance, if a person is 
asked, “What do you think of the ticket ?”, meaning the list of candi- 
dates nominated by a certain party for political office, he may perhaps 
attempt to tell what he thinks. But he is conscious that there is more 
in his mind than what he thinks. If he is honest he will admit that 
what he thinks is largely determined by an attitude of opposition or 
endorsement which his thinking goes to justify. His thoughts are 
secondary explanations of his attitudes. They strengthen and give a 
setness to the attitudes. Consequently, I might have entitled the 
chapters of this book “Attitudes, Ideas and Beliefs,” instead of merely 
“Attitudes,” but that would have given an exaggerated impression of 
the extent of the habit of explaining attitudes in rural life. Especially 
in the early days, they seem to have functioned largely without ex- 
planations and justifications. 

Attitudes are products of social experience but, as above indicated, 
not all attitudes are social attitudes on which the members of a group 
unite. The social attitudes represent the ways in which the impulses 
of the child become organized under the cultures of the groups in 
which he or she lives. There often are individuals of abnormally 
strong impulses which are not in line with the social attitudes of their 
groups. For instance, a boy of abnormally strong intellectual impulses 
is sometimes born and reared in a rural group. The social attitudes 
of the group are not congenial to these impulses, wherefore, either he 
leads a discontented life or leaves home for a vocation in which he 
can satisfy his impulses. Individuals tend to gravitate into groups 
that are more or less congenial so that the rank and file of people 
do not experience any great lack of congeniality with their groups. 
They are influenced by the behaviour and ideas of those around 
them and, without realizing it, become set to react in accordance with 
the prevailing social attitudes. Their individual inclinations are pretty 
well brought into line with the social attitudes. 

People are not to any great extent conscious of the attitudes that 


METHODS OF RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 11 


determine their behaviour. To be sure many attitudes are expressed 
as rationalized beliefs, but a greater number are merely generally 
prevalent ways of reacting of which people become conscious only 
incidentally as they try to drill them into their children or as they 
meet people of contrary attitudes. The people of strong contrary 
impulses mentioned in the preceding paragraph are an exception. 
They become conscious of the prevailing attitudes in the course of 
their conflict with them. But in the case of most people their conflict 
with their environment is not sufficiently severe and they are not 
sufficiently critical to be particularly conscious of the social attitudes 
of their environment. However, meeting people of contrary attitudes 
arouses them. Questions as to the why of the attitudes of others force 
them to consider the why of their own. But the tendency is to justify 
and excuse theirown. Thus their attitudes are little subject to change. 
The isolation of the rural neighbourhood tended to preserve its attitudes 
unchanged. 

In delineating the attitudes of a rural population, a good deal of 
what is said would be true also of the city. For people born and 
reared in the rural districts migrate to the cities and take their rural 
attitudes with them. Furthermore, urban conditions do not conduce 
to habits and attitudes entirely different from those of the rural 
districts. Wherefore, in reading this book, the reader, especially 
when he comes to analyses that seem to him to discredit the rural 
population, if he is in sympathy with that population will say, “But 
isn’t this just as true of city people?” It maybe. While there are dis- 
tinctly rural attitudes, there are others that are not so distinctive. Now 
as to this matter of attitudes discrediting a population, that depends on 
a popular rather than a scientific viewpoint. The latter knows neither 
praise nor blame, and, as I take this point of view, I cannot consider 
the popular effect of analyses but shall make them with exceeding 
care and then leave it to the reader to divest himself as far as possible 
of sectional or class or sectarian feeling and with me take the scientific 
point of view. 

The observation and analysis of the social psychologist differs from 
that of other scientists in that it requires intimate contact with people, 
in which one cultivates above everything else the attitude of a sym- 
pathetic and a thinking listener. This is possible only to a limited 
extent in the study of the social attitudes of the past, but such contact 
should be had wherever possible. There are several reasons for its 
importance. One is the subliminal nature of a good many social 


12 RURAL HERITAGE 


attitudes which, therefore, are not very clearly known to those actuated 
by them so that they have to be inferred from casual remarks and 
behaviour. Another is that some aspects of behaviour are especially 
difficult to analyse, for instance, religious attitudes; people are less 
apt to talk about their religion than about some other aspects of their 
behaviour. Still another reason for the difficulty of the task is that 
a considerable part of the behaviour of most people is felt to be 
private, that is, not to be divulged to those outside the family circle. 
Not that it is discreditable but merely private. Wherefore, particu- 
larly in the study of family attitudes, the behaviour seen by the 
observer on the outside is apt to be in one sense more or less of a pose, 
though it really is not so but is affected by the attitude for approval 
that people naturally take to outsiders. These conditions make ob- 
servation difficult and necessitate intimate contact. Even then obser- 
vation is fruitless unless made in an attitude of thoughtful sympathy. 
In that attitude observations take on a meaning that makes classifica- 
tion not merely a formal matter but a record of insights. Thus the 
interpretation grows unconsciously. 

The intensive nature of psychological observation makes extensive 
studies very slow growths and scarcely within the power of the lone 
investigator unless he extends his studies over a long period of time. 
My method has been to make a minute study of a typical community 
and then to extend the investigation to other communities and make 
comparative studies. A typical American rural community is one of 
independent farmers located around a village as their trading and 
social centre. Their habitat, national descent and line of agriculture 
must be representative. The kind of agriculture is important for 
it affects the attitudes of the people. In the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, in New York, farming was generally diversified so 
that communities were more alike in their agriculture than later. 
At the beginning of the second period specialization had been develop- 
ing for twenty-five years, with its resulting differentiation of attitudes, 
so that it is in the second and third periods that this factor particularly 
enters in. One of the essential differences between industries in the 
second period was that between an industry in which there was little 
variation in the farm prices received for the product, for instance, 
grain and dairy farming, as compared with fruit growing or hop 
raising, in which great variations in farm prices stimulated a more or 
less speculative interest in marketing. As a typical rural community 
I have, therefore, selected the one studied in my American Town, in 


METHODS OF RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 13 


which both the hop and the dairy industries were important. In the 
second period the hop industry was most important, and in the third 
period the dairy. In centring on this typical town I am using the 
method of other sciences. The biologist centres on the typical cell, the 
student of rural psychology on the typical rural community. My aim 
is to delineate the essential attitudes and beliefs of such a community. 
Those delineated hold true in the main, I think, of communities 
throughout the state, and, to a considerable extent, of communities in 
other states. Of course the scientific determination of what consti- 
tutes a typical community in a given population requires a study of 
many communities by various students, and it is hoped that this work 
will stimulate interest in such investigations. 

A psychological investigation of this intensive kind is in marked 
contrast with a rural survey. The survey is a practical investigation, | 
made in a certain short period of time by a corps of workers according 
to a carefully planned scheme and made with the consent and co- 
operation of the members of the community. A psychological study 
is more casual and extends over a much longer period of time. It 
requires more intimate contact with the group studied than can be had 
in the short period of a survey. The purpose of the psychological 
study is primarily scientific and its scope is unlimited except by 
scientific considerations. The survey is made for the purpose of 
educating the community, and is limited with this practical end in 
view. The survey of course involves making public the identity of 
the community. This is not done in the psychological study for with- 
holding the identity gives free scope,? and the identity of the com- 
munity has nothing to do with the value of the study. 

Because of the intensive methods of rural social psychology, the 
best documentary sources are limited to studies made by careful 
students in personal contact with the groups studied and to repositories 
of social facts, as newspapers. In addition there are other sources of 
some value, as journals of travellers, diaries and autobiographies, 
magazine articles, works of literary men, historians, biographers and 
others, records of churches and rural societies, and publications of 
agricultural societies. Much that is recorded in the journals of 
travellers is superficial and biased observation. Diaries and auto- 
biographies follow the bias of the writer, but may reveal significant 
attitudes. Magazine articles contain facts but often are written to 
stir interest and hence tend to be exaggerated. Writers strike 
attitudes that incite to clever writing. One of these is the attitude of 


14 RURAL HERITAGE 


contempt and ridicule that stimulates wit, another the attitude of 
indignation that leads one to picture social conditions as worse than 
they are. Very much of this kind of writing is found not only in the 
files of the magazines and newspapers but also in biographies and 
histories. In the letters of reformers, politicians, educators and 
clergymen that are found in biographies and histories the 
writers strike attitudes that win attention but which impair the 
trustworthiness of their ideas and statements of fact. Writers who 
stressed changes for the worse often wrote with industrial centres in 
mind but generalized for the sake of adding interest, as if the changes 
were characteristic of the country as a whole. The student of rural 
development is not directly concerned with industrial centres. For all 
these reasons the documentary sources must be used with great 
discretion. The strictly scientific method of studying the social 
psychology of rural development is to make intensive studies of rural 
communities. 

The intensive study of particular communities reduces to a minimum 
the effect of the personal bias of the investigator. This invariably 
leads to an unconscious emphasis on social attitudes that are congenial 
to the investigator or on attitudes that are contrary to these and so 
impress by contrast. For instance, lawyers emphasize the impulsive 
aspect of human behaviour because their business consists of settling, 
in accordance with law and custom, disputes between people who are 
intent on satisfying their ‘instincts,’ as the lawyer terms it. The 
behaviour of these people impresses the lawyer because of its contrast 
with custom-abiding behaviour and subservience to law. Again, un- 
usually intellectual men emphasize the customary aspect of human 
behaviour because of its contrast with their readiness to regulate 
behaviour according to reason. These different lines of emphasis 
due to personal bias are unconscious; and writers on social psychology 
as well as other men are affected by unconscious bias. The best way 
to escape it is to centre on particular communities. 

The most important documentary source for the study of rural social 
psychology is the rural newspaper. Dailies that circulate through 
the rural districts also should be examined. In 1920 there were 203 
daily newspapers in New York and 526 weeklies.* Of the weeklies 
489 were published in villages not having dailies. Most of these 
weeklies were country weeklies, that is, were published for the popuia- 
tion of the village and the surrounding country. The files of these 


METHODS OF RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 15 


papers in a sense constitute the archives of their communities. Of 
course the papers are not published with a view to their value as 
archives, though this is by no means contrary to the ordinary purpose 
of a newspaper. For their purpose, at its best, is to report the doings 
of the community, and to foster a critical attitude to community doings 
in order to bring the community into line with social progress. The 
weeklies, in reporting the news, have tended to give too much village 
news and too little from the surrounding country. The selection of 
news has been haphazard instead of directed with a view to the 
economic and social development of the community. However, the 
paper is the fullest repository of social facts that we have. And, above 
all, its pages reveal the social attitudes that pervade the social inter- 
course of the community. For the paper is the chief means of social 
intercourse throughout the community. 

In addition to the newspapers of the rural communities of the 
state there are the files of the weekly papers that circulate throughout 
the entire rural part of the state, of which the most important: are 
the Rural New-Yorker and the American Agriculturalist. 

This book is an outgrowth of my American Town, privately 
printed in 1906, which was a study of a town of New York State. 
When I refer to that town in this work I shall avoid the use of names 
that might disclose its identity and shall refer to it as Blanktown, 
to the village in the northern part as Blankville, and to its two hamlets 
as Blankwell and The Centre. The latter is the name by which that 
neighbourhood was locally known for a hundred years. The eleven 
school districts of the town are identical with rural neighbourhoods 
which have existed since the town was settled and I shall designate 
each of these neighbourhoods by the name by which it was locally 
known until recently. 

The sources for the social psychology of the rural communities of 
New York in addition to those already mentioned include a mass of 
local records only a small part of which are assembled where they 
are accessible to students. I have found them packed away in the 
garrets of school houses and of the houses of former officials and old 
residents. Just to show what might be made available I give here 
a list of the sources for the development of our typical town. 

1. Town-meeting records for 1796-1923. 

2. Assessment rolls for most of the years of the period 1825-1923. 

3. The census returns for Blanktown of the state census of 1845. 


16 RURAL HERITAGE 


4. Census records of Blankville for 1874, 1877-82, 1885-1923. 

5. Records of district school meetings of seven school districts 
from 1850, and less complete records of other districts. 

6. More or less complete records of the Baptist, Episcopal and 
Presbyterian churches during their entire history and of the Methodist 
Church since 1874. 

7. Files of the Blanktown Intelligencer, a weekly paper published 
in Pleasant Valley, for 1825-35, and of the Blankville Times for 1859, 
1861-68, 1870-1923. 

8. Records of the Board of Trustees of Blankville for 1873-1923. 

9. An atlas published by D. G. Beers and Co., Philadelphia, 1874, 
containing a map of Blanktown that indicates the location of the 
homesteads of the town in 1874. 

These sources are of course very meagre for the student of psycho- 
logical processes. They mean little unless used in connection with 
the testimony of old residents. In the preparation of my American 
Town, in 1900, the testimony of several old residents in connection 
with the census and the assessment roll of 1845 made it possible to 
determine with certainty the location of about ninety-five per cent, 
and, with probability, that of the remaining five per cent of the 
families recorded as living in the town in 1845. The Beers atlas 
and the assessment roll of 1874, in connection with the testimony of 
old residents, made it possible to determine the location of the families 
of the town at that time. So, with a census of the town which I 
took in 1900, I was able to make cross sectional studies of the town 
in 1845, 1875, and 1900. Through the testimony of the old residents, 
used in connection with church and school records and the files of the 
weekly paper, I was able to learn of the beliefs, attitudes, and manner 
of life of the different families living in the town in each of those 
periods. Thus the testimony of old residents, used discriminately, 
proved to be an indispensable source of information. Among these 
old residents were several between eighty-two and ninety-two years 
of age. They had lived all their lives in the town and were in full 
possession of their faculties and had remarkably clear memories for 
people and events of their early life so that their recollections extended 
as far back as 1825. In addition to these old residents there were 
in every neighbourhood others whose memories went back to 1845 and 
who were able to give more or less information about each family 
living in their neighbourhoods in 1845. Finally in each neighbourhood 
there were several persons who had resided there since 1875 and could 


METHODS OF RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 17 


furnish information about the town at that time and later. And data 
are still more abundant for the period since 1900. In other commu- 
nities in different parts of the state I have found these old residents. 
They thoroughly enjoy answering questions for questions stir a flood 
of recollections. And it pleases old as well as younger people to 
find others who are interested in what so interests them. In all the 
communities studied there were sufficient documentary sources to 
serve as a point of departure for this exploration of the recollection of 
‘ these living embodiments of the past history of the community. 

A comparative study of communities extends one’s knowledge of 
the social attitudes of the rural population indefinitely, for, however 
complete one may feel one’s knowledge to be, one always finds some- 
thing new in another community. That is, every community differs 
from others in certain respects so that a classification of communities 
is very difficult to make. As will be seen, the most general classifica- 
tions have reference to the attitudes determined by the physical char- 
acteristics of the habitat, whether hilly or level and fertile, and by 
accessibility to markets and centres of social pleasure. Another im- 
portant basis of a difference of attitudes is the prevailing agricultural 
industries. Then, of course, there is the nationality of the farmers 
and the religious affiliation. I have found certain communities, 
similar in physical characteristics, nearness to cities, agricultural in- 
dustries and nationality, which have certain striking differences in 
attitudes that seem to be due to ancient differences in religious affilia- 
tion. Again, sometimes a combination of hill country, remoteness 
from cities, old-style agricultural industry and ancient families results 
in a community in which the old attitudes are unusually well preserved. 
On the other hand, one sometimes finds an astonishing persistence of 
certain old attitudes in the most progressive communities, for instance, 
respect for old people and the manners by which this respect is shown. 
In spite of this marked difference in the psychology of various commu- 
nities, certain attitudes are found in all. The trends in these attitudes 
can be traced by the aid of the testimony of old residents. In the de- 
termination of these essential attitudes and their trends accuracy 
depends not only on the extent of one’s own investigations but also 
on a wide acquaintance with other careful observers. It is the scarcity 
of observers more than anything else that hampers this development 
of inductive social psychology. 

The emphasis thus far has been on observation and analysis, in- 
tensive and extensive. In addition the investigator should have 


18 RURAL HERITAGE 


some idea of the theoretical significance of his investigation. 
Some investigations of rural communities seem to have been 
planned merely with a view to presenting an idea numerically and 
graphically, with little or no consideration of the question, “What of 
it?’ Of course it is difficult to consider what of it until we have a 
good many of these ideas as data for generalizations. Still some 
investigations would have been more fruitful if the author, along 
with his presentation, had given some indication of the significance, 
for him, of the investigation. An idea is not of particular value just 
because it can be presented graphically. The need of a theoretical 
approach is evident also in extensive investigations that are made in 
connection with proposed reforms. Certain recent investigations of 
rural institutions in New York are merely a mass of facts with 
recommendations, but without any interpretation that gives significance 
to the facts or leads up to the recommendations in a way to explain 
why they were made. In such a case the presumption is that they 
were prompted by the personal attitudes of the investigator so that the 
investigation, in so far as its purpose was to make convincing proposals 
of reforms, largely loses its force. Now in a psychological investiga- 
tion of a population we are dealing with facts that cannot be expressed 
graphically or numerically except to a very limited extent. Also they 
are a kind of facts that cannot be understood except as a development 
out of the past where graphical and numerical formulation is still more 
difficult. But studies that can make use of graphical and numerical 
methods may have a relation to the psychological investigations and it 
would be well, in such studies, to indicate their broad significance. 


CHAPTER III 
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD AND THE COMMUNITY 


EW YORK lies at the northern end of the Appalachian 

mountain system, which stretches southwestward to the 

Gulf of Mexico. Across the state runs the lowest divide 
in that system. This divide has been the main thoroughfare between 
the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi Valley. It includes the Hud- 
son and Mohawk valleys, the Finger Lakes region and the country 
lying to the north of this to Lake Ontario. It divides the state into 
three main upland regions, a central and northeastern, a southern, 
and a southeastern. Of the 47,620 square miles of land surface of 
the state, about one-third is lowland and the rest hilly and some 
mountainous. These physiographic features determined the course 
of settlement of the state by the whites and its later agricultural and 
industrial development. The settlers followed the great divide and 
established outposts, which later developed into cities. At the eastern 
end of the divide stands New York and at the western end Buffalo. 
Between these two centres of industry and commerce, at central points 
of production and communication, are the other large cities. Out 
in the side valleys are the smaller cities and further on in the valleys 
and on the slopes are the villages that form the trade centres of the 
rural communities.? 

These communities are the objects of our study. It does not fall 
within the scope of this book to describe the physiography of New 
York or the history of its agriculture. These topics are treated in 
various books. This book is concerned with the human side of the 
rural development. Of this side Dr. L. H. Bailey writes in his preface 
to Fippin’s Rural New York, after mentioning the documents on 
which the historian of New York agriculture depends: ‘“Unfortu- 
nately the personal human documents are largely to be written.” In 
tracing the human side of rural development we are, therefore, thrown 
largely on our own resources. 

The permanent settlement of New York began in 1623 when 
the Dutch acquired Manhattan Island from the Indians, During 
the seventeenth century settlements were made as far north as 

19 


20 RURAL HERITAGE 


Schenectady, mostly by the Dutch. In the latter part of the century 
the English and the Huguenots began to settle lower New York. 
About the beginning of the eighteenth century German Protestants 
began to settle in the Hudson Valley. During the eighteenth century 
settlements spread up the Mohawk Valley but western New York was 
slowly settled. It is said that as late as 1780 there were in all western 
New York beyond Cayuga Lake only about one thousand whites. 
The acquisition of New York by the English in 1684 stimulated the 
inflow of English immigrants, who came largely from New England. 
They predominated in the settlement of western New York. These 
different nationalities represented also different religious sects and, 
because of this mingling of sects, New York developed an attitude of 
greater tolerance than New England.’ 

The settlers of New York followed the waterways and the Indian 
trails. They went up the Hudson and the Mohawk and portaged 
from those rivers to others along which they paddled into Lakes George 
and Champlain, into northern New York, into Lake Ontario and the 
Finger Lakes region of central New York. ‘The latter was the great 
Indian thoroughfare to the west and was the route most used by the 
whites until the building of the Erie Canal and the railroads. In 
lower New York routes led through the Catskills to the headwaters of 
the Delaware and the Susquehanna, by which rivers and their tribu- 
taries the western parts of the state were accessible as far as the 
headwaters of the Genesee. This river was followed to a point from 
which there was a portage to the Allegheny River. Indian trails rami- 
fied from these waterways through the dense forest in every direction. 
These were narrow, sometimes worn a foot deep and difficult to trav- 
erse by pack animals. So settlement was retarded until roads were 
gradually built. A road was early laid out along the Hudson from 
New York to Albany, another to Clinton County, another from the 
Hudson to the Delaware River, another along the Mohawk to Utica 
and thence to Syracuse, Auburn, Geneva and eventually to Buffalo 
and the Genesee River. Another road extended from Utica into 
northern New York. These and other roads had been built before 
1800. About 1790 began the movement for the construction of 
canals. After various small canals had been built larger ones were 
projected. The Champlain Canal was completed in 1823 and the 
Erie Canal in 1825. From the main line of the latter, various 
branches were constructed in the next fifteen years. At the same 
time with the building of canals the government was building roads to 


NEIGHBOURHOOD AND THE COMMUNITY 21 


connect points inland with cities and villages on the canals. These 
projects were still incomplete when the building of railroads began. 
By 1837 the steam railroad had reached across the state to Rochester, 
just before the great increase in immigration from Europe in the 
forties. 

The rural population of the state was grouped in families, neighbour- 
hoods and villages. Neighbourhoods were grouped around a village 
and this larger group formed the rural community. The neighbour- 
hood was a group of families that were conscious of more or less inti- 
mate relations with one another. The early New York neighbourhood 
was not as strictly a farming community as rural neighbourhoods are 
to-day. It was apt to include artisans and might boast of a local indus- 
try, a tavern, a store, a doctor. To-day the artisans, the local indus- 
tries, hotels, stores and doctors are located in the villages. Thus the 
community has increased and the neighbourhood has diminished in im- 
portance asarural unit. In the early days the centre of the community 
was the church. It was not only a place of worship but also a centre of 
influence for fostering those family, economic, religious and other 
attitudes and beliefs that were essential in the character of the people 
of the community. 

We do not know how many communities and neighbourhoods there 
have been in New York in the past nor, indeed, how many there are 
at the present time because the boundaries of these social groups 
do not coincide with the boundaries of the civil divisions that serve 
as the enumeration units of the census-taker. According to the New 
York State census of 1915 there were then eight hundred and twenty- 
six incorporated villages in the state. Most of these were centres of 
rural communities and most of them were in existence before the Civil 
War though not all as incorporated villages.» We may assume then 
that there were at that time at least that number of communities in 
the state. 7 , 

The structure of the neighbourhood and the community next engages 
our attention. In order to make this clear we shall centre on our 
typical town. In doing this, as structure was everywhere similar we 
shall be defining the prevailing structure of the rural groups of the 
state. The settlers of the typical town came over the main Indian 
thoroughfare to the outpost of A’ and from there traversed the trail 
that wound up the valley from A to the northern boundary of our 
town. Later the Erie Canal and, still later, the main line of one of 
the most important railroads of the state passed through the city of 


22 RURAL HERITAGE 


A. A stage road early was built connecting our town with A. Not 
until 1867 was the town connected with A bya railroad. The settlers 
brought their belongings on horseback and on their own backs, later 
in lumber wagons, when the trail had broadened into a road. They 
built log houses and lived therein until a saw-mill had been constructed, 
when they made lumber and built frame houses. The settlers of the 
town segregated in twelve neighbourhoods. Some years after the first 
settlement, the turnpike road which was being built across the state was 
laid down through the town. It passed through The Centre and that 
neighbourhood became the trading and social centre of the town. 
Town meetings and the town court were held at The Centre. There 
the majority of the people attended church and a considerable number 
of children attended a “select school.” With the completion of the 
Erie Canal, A, now a flourishing young city, was connected by water 
with the seaboard. The stage road above referred to connected the 
village in the northern part of our town with A. This village, Blank- 
ville, then became the trading centre of the town and, before many 
years, all the churches of the town were located in Blankville. 

Our town was the southern part of a community that centred 
around the village lying in the northern part of the town. A very 
small part of the community extended over into the town to the north. 
But only a small part of the town to the north lay in this community. 
So I have included the one town instead of two in the special study. 
I take the town as the typical group because most of the documentary 
sources are for the town and not for the entire community. This 
work may, therefore, be taken as, among other things, a contribution 
to a clearer conception of what we mean in the psychological sense 
by a rural community with its constituent neighbourhoods. 

The early farmer in New York and elsewhere was largely inde- 
pendent of the outside world. He raised all the food he consumed 
except salt and such luxuries as tea, coffee, spices. He lived well too, 
after the land had been cleared and made productive. He had various 
kinds of meat, dairy products, vegetables, cereals, fruit, honey and 
maple sugar. He cut his own lumber and had it sawed at the local 
mill; got his paint at the local paint factory; his brick and tile at the 
local factory; had his grain ground at the local grist mill; had his skins 
tanned at the local tannery and the shoes of his family made by the 
local cobbler ; got his pottery at the local pottery works; made his soap 
and tallow candles; and had many of his tools made by the local 
blacksmith or made them himself. He raised his wool and flax and 


NEIGHBOURHOOD AND THE COMMUNITY 23 


the family either carded the wool by hand or sent it to the factory 
from which it came back in rolls to be spun into yarn on the spinning 
wheel by the housewife and her daughters. The yarn was taken to 
the fulling mill where it was woven and dyed and with this cloth the 
women made the clothing of the family. The farmer might also 
get an organ at a local organ factory. And to assist him in making 
or repairing the various things he needed there were the local car- 
penter, wagon-maker, shingle-maker, cooper, harness-maker, clock- 
mender.’ This sketch of the independence and isolation of the early 
neighbourhood enables us to realize with what facility the politicians 
could promote the idea that the nation ought to be economically in- 
dependent of, and isolated from the outside world. This belief per- 
sisted long after the primitive conditions which made it seem plausible 
had passed away. 

The strong social consciousness of the neighbourhood rested on its 
economic self-sufficiency. The feeling was further increased by the 
kinship ties in many neighbourhoods.® If not related by blood the 
families were apt to have come from the same part of New England or 
Europe.® Neighbourhood consciousness has weakened since those 
early days, but the neighbourhoods have not entirely disappeared. 
They persist where people are so isolated that it is difficult to go to the 
village frequently or where the local interest centres in some neighbour- 
hood institution as a church or school. The neighbourhood continues 
to function in various ways. For instance, though the Farm Bureau 
unit is the town, the work of the town committee of the Bureau is 
most effectively carried on by observing neighbourhood divisions and 
by each member of the committee working with the farmers of his 
neighbourhood.?® Because of the emulation between neighbourhoods, 
leaders can get action by telling the farmers of one neighbourhood 
what those of another are doing. 

The distinction commonly made to-day between the neighbourhood 
and the community is that the neighbourhood renders at most only 
two or three forms of service—has only a church, a school, a store— 
while the village at the centre of the community furnishes most of the 
services enjoyed by the rural people.*4 This distinction based on 
services rendered is brought forward in the absence of the old-time 
psychological characteristic of the neighbourhood, that is, neighbourli- 
ness. In the beginning the neighbourhood consciousness was based on 
the economic self-sufficiency of the neighbourhood, on co-operation be- 
tween neighbours, on kinship, long acquaintanceship and intimate social 


24. RURAL HERITAGE 


intercourse. The community consciousness, on the other hand, was 
comparatively weak and centred around the church more than any 
other one institution.12 Of course a church membership was not co- 
extensive with a community but it was through going to church that 
people got their only regular and frequent experience of a social life 
larger than that of the neighbourhood. The old phrase “going to 
meeting,’ which was almost entirely used instead of our “going to 
church,” signified this function of the church as the meeting place of 
a larger number of families than took part in the small neighbourhood 
gatherings. 


CHAPTER IV 
PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES 


HE analysis of the attitudes of a rural population naturally 
begins with a study of the psychological effects of the features 
of the physical environment, particularly of climate, topog- 

raphy, fertility of soil, accessibility to markets and to centres of 
social pleasure. 


CLIMATE 


Climate depends on latitude, altitude, topography, position with 
reference to lakes or ocean and to the cyclonic air currents across 
the continent. New York is in a latitude in which, during several 
months of the year, it is cold enough to snow. In the regions near the 
Great Lakes the rigour of the winter is slightly alleviated by the cyclonic 
air currents which blow over the lakes toward the east and warm the 
air over the adjacent land somewhat, as the lake water is warmer in 
winter than the land until the lakes freeze. The melting ice in the 
spring cools the air and ordinarily keeps the fruit trees from budding 
until the danger from frost has passed. In the hill country local 
winds are caused by the flow of cooled air down steep slopes, which 
makes the climate cooler.t Much of New York is hill country and 
this makes the air somewhat cooler than it would otherwise be. 
Nearness to lakes and ocean causes a high rainfall and snowfall. Thus 
the winter climate is rigorous and this has had a pronounced effect on 
the attitudes of the population. In the first decades the farmer and 
his boys worked in the woods during most of the winter. Farmers 
who were boys in this period tell of the winter days in the woods, 
the hard and exhilarating work, the noon-day meal of luke-warm coffee 
and frozen fried-cakes, the chilling ride home exposed to the icy blast. 
Endurance of cold was one of the essential attitudes of the rural 
population. The severe cold of winter and the heat of summer in- 
creased the discomforts of the farmer’s life that had to be borne, and 
the attitude of endurance of cold and heat enhanced the general attitude 

25 


26 RURAL HERITAGE 


of self-restraint which, as we shall see, was so important in determining 
the character of the farmer. This self-restraint is said to have been 
still more pronounced among the farmers of New England; and one 
reason for it is said to have been the greater rigour of the New England 
climate.2_ In New York the attitude of endurance of extremes of 
climate was pronounced, “Oh, it isn’t so bad” was one of the custom- 
ary ways of expressing the attitude. The farmers prided themselves 
on their endurance and contemned those who shrank from unpleasant 
weather. Endurance of cold and suffering from extremes of weather 
is less necessary than formerly. The stove and the furnace have re- 
placed the old fireplace. The farmer rides to town in a closed, heated 
auto instead of in an open carriage or sleigh. There is little winter 
work in the woods. The attitude of endurance is less pronounced 
than among the early population. 

Another aspect of climate that may have affected New Yorkers 
somewhat is the humid atmosphere and cloudy sky. A high humidity 
and much cloudy weather conduces to.mental apathy, while a low 
humidity and much sunshine stimulates the nervous system. While 
the climate of New York is not extremely humid and cloudy it is more 
so than that of many western states. This may have contributed 
somewhat, though in a very minor degree, to the conservatism of New 
York. More important causes of conservatism will be mentioned 
later. 


TOPOGRAPHY AND FERTILITY 


New York had an extensive area of rich valleys and fertile hills, 
until the latter became worn by deforestation, constant cropping, leach- 
ing and erosion. Topography has affected psychological processes in 
New York in two ways: (1) Certain topographical features selected 
people of certain attitudes; (2) certain features developed certain 
attitudes. We can best make clear these effects by giving a concrete 
description, and, for this purpose, we shall centre on our typical town. 
The topography of the town is typical of a good deal of the state. 
The natural entrance to the town is at its northern boundary, from 
which a valley runs southwest through the town with hill country on 
each side. At the southern boundary the valley is narrow so that the 
entire southern part of the town is hilly. Some of the hillsides are 
too steep for successful cultivation but they have been stripped of trees 
and put under cultivation or used as pasture land. The steepness of 


PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 27 


these hills was an obstacle to communication between Blanktown and 
the towns to the south and east. Blanktown always has been more 
intimately acquainted with the population to the north and west than 
with that to the south and east. When settled the town included 
considerable territory lying to the south and east of its present 
limits, from which it was separated in answer to a petition of 
the inhabitants to the state legislature which asked the separation 
on the ground that the “range of high hills’ to the south and 
east was “difficult to be traversed.’ With the towns to the south 
and east, then, our town has had comparatively little communica- 
tion. Those towns have had their own trading centres. Further- 
more, the population of Blanktown has differed psychologically 
from that of the towns to the south and east. The successful farmers 
in the eastern and southern hill country, as the years went by sold 
their worn-out farms and bought fine farms in the central and northern 
valley. So there developed a sense of fundamental difference between 
the two populations. The valley farmer had the attitudes of the 
successful worker, not only the economic but also the religious at- 
titudes. He was persistent in work and despised a farmer who would 
leave his work during the week to attend a religious service. In the 
town to the south the farmers were more indifferent workers, more 
given to religious frenzy, more apt to follow after preachers of strange 
doctrines, to “swallow” stories of local miracles that to the more 
practical Blanktownsman seemed “all stuff and nonsense.’’* Thus 
this shifting of population resulted in economically and psychologically 
distinct communities conscious of their unlikeness. I have observed 
this process in other parts of New York. So much for the first effect 
of topography above mentioned. 

We turn now to the effect of topography in developing certain 
attitudes. The hill country tended to develop patience and resignation. 
A farmer could not hurry totown. He had to take half a day for it. 
He could not rush work on a steep hillside. He had to learn to go 
slow if he was inclined to the contrary. He had to resign himself to 
the hard work and poor crops of a hill farm. In winter the roads be- 
tween the hills were impassable for weeks at a time because of the deep 
snow. ‘You have to take it in the hill country,” they say. On the 
other hand this easy-going willingness to let events take their course 
tended to inefficiency on a rich valley farm where additional effort was 
well rewarded. The farmer who was of a “driving” temperament got 
out of the hill country as soon as he could. He had not the patience for 


28 RURAL HERITAGE 


it. ‘The social conditions of the hill country, particularly the isolation, 
also encouraged an easy-going attitude, for the main roads extended 
through the valleys, and farmers would drive along the road and eye 
the farms an each side. The hill farmers did not have this social 
incentive to industry. So social as well as topographical conditions 
did not encourage persistent work in the hill country as in the valley. 

Because of the lack of initiative resulting from the topography and 
the isolation the farmers of the hilly parts of the state were less quick 
to adopt new agricultural methods, slower to raise their standard of 
living and generally more fixed in adherence to custom than those in 
the valleys. The farmers in the hill country to the south and east of 
our typical town retained the uncouth dress, the speech and manners of 
the backwoodsman long after these had been discarded in our typical 
town. The hill farmers not only kept their primitive ways but had a 
kind of conceit that their ways were the best. 


ACCESSIBILITY TO MARKETS AND SOCIAL CENTRES 


Accessibility to markets and centres of social pleasure has had a 
profound effect on the farmers of the state. The building of canals 
and roads opened up the state for settlement and stimulated the pro- 
duction of cereals, animal products and lumber, also the manufacture 
of these products in hundreds of small mills and factories, and the 
transportation of them to the centres of consumption and export. The 
regions favourably situated on natural waterways were especially pros- 
perous. Then came the railroads which ramified through the state 
and connected the rural parts with the outside world. This stimulated 
specialization in the production, for export, of the crops which the 
various sections were best fitted to produce. Half a century later im- 
proved roads and the auto, which made possible the rapid handling of 
milk, facilitated the change from various types of specialized farming 
that had impoverished the soil, as hop and grain farming, to dairy 
farming which tends to maintain the fertility of the soil if properly 
conducted. This return to diversified farming resulted in changes in 
the attitudes of the population. 


PROCESSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE 


In the analysis of the social psychology of rural development we 
have to consider, then, certain distinct processes. First, there is what 


PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 29 


may be called the logic of the development. The development of 
specialized farming that took place in New York would not have come 
without the development of railway transportation. The development 
of dairy farming and of co-operation in selling milk would not have 
come as quickly and completely as it did without the improvement of 
roads and gasoline transportation. One change makes possible another 
and suggests its feasibility. This process of social change has a men- 
tal correlation in the development of the mind whereby the solving of 
one problem makes it possible to solve another. The logical process of 
development has been discussed in the rural districts of the state by 
the local philosophers around the stove in the store on winter evenings 
for fifty years or more. In our typical town Mr. C would 
suggest how remarkable it was that the invention of the telegraph 
followed so closely on that of the steam railroad inasmuch as the 
railroad necessitated the telegraph. Then some one would point out 
that the railroad made possible the transportation of agricultural 
products and the telegraph made possible the transmission of market 
quotations even from foreign countries and the effect of this on 
agricultural industry would be discussed, always, of course, from the 
local point of view. 

In addition to the logical aspect of development, there are the more 
distinctly psychological processes with which we are concerned. I 
never heard these talked about and, so far as I can ascertain, no 
effort has been made in the course of public education to inform 
pupils, in the rural schools or elsewhere, of these processes of their 
own development. 

In addition to its logical and psychological aspects social change has 
a fortuitous side. The inventor quite often makes important dis- 
coveries by chance. Changes in the material side of rural culture seem 
sometimes to have come by chance—by chance relations of the demand 
for a commodity to the supply of it or by the chance of a certain man 
settling in the region and introducing a new crop. 

The psychological processes of New York communities differed in 
certain essentials from those of the west. For instance, comparing 
our typical town with towns in the prairie region of the west which 
I have studied, one of the essential differences seems to be the more 
pronounced rivalrous disposition and speculative economic attitude of 
the western towns. This is due to a number of conditions. First, 
the western settlers were far removed from the region of settled habits 
in the east. Second, they had a keen sense of the superiority of their 





30 - RURAL HERITAGE 


country over the eastern farming region and this stimulated an opti- 
mistic imagination. Third, the west was settled in the days of the 
building of steam railroads, which, it was anticipated, would cause an 
immense rise in land values. The anticipation was intensified by other 
conditions. Simultaneously with the settlement of the west came 
the invention of farming machinery that facilitated the working of 
level land. Also the region was wonderfully fertile, as well as clear 
of forests and thus was naturally adapted to the extensive use of farm 
machinery. All this caused an extreme development of the speculative 
attitude.5 In southern Minnesota, “many of the so-called ‘Yankee’ 
settlers took up the land merely as a speculation, preferring to ‘try 
their luck at farming the farmer.’ Accordingly we find them ‘going 
into business, running stores, mills, and politics.’ At that time very 
few of the foreign-born element ‘had the training to get into these 
grafts.’’’® Then came the German and Norwegian immigrants and 
“not being afraid of work, they took to the soil naturally, renting from 
or buying out the original owners of the land, after having worked 
as hired help for a few years.’’* But the foreigners caught the 
speculative tendency. This tendency stimulated the imagination and 
tended to make the people as a whole somewhat less set in their beliefs 
than in the East. Their passion was for the growth of the village 
or city, for booming the land values of the surrounding country. 
The West selected pioneers of a speculative attitude from the East and 
then the western conditions accentuated that attitude. This selection 
reacted on the East to intensify adherence to custom there, for the 
conventional people were left behind. At the same time the opening 
up of the West depressed land values in the East. So, particularly on 
the frontier, there always was an expectation of prosperity, a sense 
of the superiority of the opportunities of the West over those in the 
East. And the influence of those who won riches, their assurance and 
elation, infected the less successful.§ The influential people were the 
successful speculators, of which every village was apt to have one or 
more. They inclined to conviviality in social life, wherefore their 
influence was against the conventional austerity supported by the 
churches. Hence the tendency in the West to be less set in adherence 
to dogma than in the East. 

It has been suggested that the topography of the West had a direct 
effect on the imagination, that the vast spaces of the prairie tended 
to stir the imagination. While this might be the effect of the first 
sight of the prairies on the easterner, it seemed to me that if the 


PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 31 


westerners were somewhat more imaginative than the easterners it 
was not due to the direct effect of the landscape on the mind but to 
their different economic situation and the attitudes thus fostered. 
Their situation stirred an expectancy of material prosperity and their 
agriculture was of a kind to invite new methods and machinery and 
so to accustom the mind to the idea of change. 

The predominant disposition in the East was the acquisitive. The 
emphasis was on working and saving. As to working, the hill country 
did not permit extensive use of farm machinery, and this made the 
farmer’s life one of excessive action. This was one of the main 
causes of the extreme adherence to custom that characterized the east- 
ern rural neighbourhoods. The emphasis in the East was also on sav- 
ing. In the West the great extent of rich land made unnecessary the 
extreme thrift of the East—the raking of scatterings, the endless pick- 
ing up of stone—a habit of mind that may be carried so far as to prevent 
the use of imagination on larger problems. Finally, the acquisitive dis- 
position in the East was fostered by the fact that there the farmer at 
first produced almost everything he consumed, and the tradition of this 
economic self-sufficiency survived long after specialized production 
for the market had developed. The westerner, on the contrary, pro- 
duced for the market from the beginning, got his return in money 
rather than in crops for his own consumption, and lived off his bank 
account. Specialized farming and a bank account encourages getting 
away somewhat from the extreme thrift of a population that has no 
bank account, buys little and lives off its own crops. 


CHAPTER V 


ATTITUDES TO THE WEATHER AND THE MOON 


HE behaviour of rural people always has been different from 
that of city people. This is due to the different conditions 
under which they live and work. First, rural people are 

more exposed to the weather and more dependent on the weather and 
the seasons for their prosperity. Second, they are more isolated. 
Third, in their economic life they are in constant contact with nature 
and are less concerned with people—are more “independent,” as they 
say—than those in other occupations. Fourth, the farmer’s work is 
more confining than that of any other occupation. If he keeps live 
stock, he must work every day in the year. The separate effects of 
these various conditions on the character of the rural population can 
be traced only to a very limited extent. To be sure, certain attitudes 
are plainly much more a result of one set of conditions than of others. 
Certain attitudes are plainly a result of exposure to uncertain weather, 
certain others of dependence on the uncertain weather and the uncer- 
tain seasons for the fruition of crops, certain others of isolation, 
certain others of independence, and certain others of the hard and 
confining work of the farmer. But we should not want to say that 
any attitude, as we see it in the behaviour of the early farmer, was 
exclusively a result of one set of conditions. For instance, the un- 
certainty of the weather caused an attitude of indecision. But in- 
decision as we see it in the farmer was accentuated by his reserve due 
to his isolation. His reserve, in turn, was accentuated by his inde- 
pendence and his constant work. We cannot determine just how 
much each of the several conditions under which the rural family lived 
determined its behaviour. But we can show how certain conditions 
predominantly determined certain attitudes. In this chapter we are 
concerned with the effects of the weather. In describing weather 
attitudes we do not by any means imply that adaptation to the weather 
was the sole determining condition of those attitudes. 
32 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 33 


ATTITUDES TO THE WEATHER 


Certain aspects of the physical environment aroused a never failing 
interest among farmers, especially aspects that had to do with the 
weather and the seasons. The farmer’s prosperity depended on 
whether the season was favourable or unfavourable and also on the 
changes in the weather from day to day. Hence his interest in the 
weather. His first thought when he awoke in the morning was, “I 
wonder what kind of a day it’s going to be,” and his first act was 
to look out and see. His last thought at night was of what the 
weather might be on the morrow. ‘This interest was due to the effect 
of the weather on the farmer’s movements from day to day. He got 
the ground all prepared to sow his grain and “then it came on and 
rained and there was no living with him, for he had to sit around till 
the rain was over and then do his work all over again.” If there 
was anything that irritated the busy farmer it was to have the weather 
interfere with his work. He got resigned by use of some such for- 
mula as “Man proposes but God disposes.” This was not a mere phrase 
but a formula that brought into action the religious attitude of 
resignation. The irreligious farmer developed an attitude of I-won’t- 
worry-anyway. Whether religious or not the resigned attitude grew 
on the farmer with the years until he often irritated his wife by his 
apparently placid acceptance of everything as it came. ‘The less he 
worried, the more she worried at his not worrying. For not to 
worry sometimes came to mean not to think at all so that the mother 
sometimes said to the daughter who wanted her father to do some- 
thing, “You know your father doesn’t worry about anything so you 
must impress it on him.” The wife, having less to do directly with 
the weather, developed less of the weather resignation. There were, 
of course, exceptions to this situation. The husband sometimes was 
the person who worried, the wife the one who did not, but it was 
a general belief that “farming is no occupation for a man who worries.” 
Such men were quite apt to get out of farming and go into some calling 
where resignation as an adaptive quality was not so imperative. 

The uncertainty of the weather was one of the conditions that 
required resignation as an adaptive attitude. Other rural conditions 
accentuated that attitude. Because of his isolation the farmer could 
not readily find diversion to distract him from disappointments due 
to the weather, and left to himself he had to develop resignation. 


34 RURAL HERITAGE 


Another condition that accentuated resignation was the hard and con- 
fining nature of his occupation. 

Uncertainty and chance-taking are necessary features of other under- 
takings than agriculture, but, in the latter, because of the large 
part played by the weather, it seems less possible to control the course 
of events by an unusual effort or an exercise of intelligence than in 
business and the professions. For this reason, in planting his crops 
and deciding what to plant and how much, the farmer thought of the 
ultimate outcome as decided by forces outside himself over which he 
had no control. ‘Whatever is to be will be’”’ was the way he expressed 
it. This attitude he transferred to a great variety of situations. It 
resigned him not only to unfavourable weather and a bad season but 
also to reverses due to the uncertainty of business conditions. And this 
behaviour continues to-day. For instance, if a farmer does not sell 
his crop at the time of the highest price and you say to him, ‘Too 
bad you did not know it,” he is apt to reply, “No, I don’t think so, 
if it had been best for me to know it, I would have known.” It is 
a common belief that it is best that we do not know the future for, 
if we did, we could not stand the thought of the troubles before us. 
The best way is not to know and then to be resigned to whatever 
comes. This general attitude was seen in reaction to disappointment 
or loss of any kind and reflected the prevailing experience, an experi- 
ence of trouble, hardship and disappointment, which made men in ear- 
nest in their cultivation of resignation. 

Strange to say, though the farmer was constantly taking a chance 
on the seasons—for when he planted he did not know that he would 
reap—yet he was not conscious of this as chance-taking. This appeal 
to chance was so habitual that he was not conscious of it. On the 
other hand, any unusual appeal to chance was thought of as chance- 
taking and a farmer felt particularly good over a lucky decision. 
An investment of money was thought of as chance-taking. Many, 
perhaps most farmers did not like a deliberate appeal to chance, unless 
it was ina horse-trade. They were generally averse to taking a chance 
in the investment of money, though there were many exceptions to 
this rule, especially in a period of rising prices and speculation. The 
men who enjoyed taking a chance were apt to go into some kind of 
speculation, as horse or cattle trading, or to emigrate west where they 
could speculate in land, or to go to the cities. The typical New York 
farmer’s habit of “hanging on to what he has got” and his averseness 
to “running into debt” inclined him against chance-taking that in- 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 35 


volved the investment of money. This attitude, in contrast to that of 
business, is seen in certain rural sections to-day where business men 
from the city have gone into fruit farming. Because of their habit 
of borrowing for production the business men are less averse to risking 
money in new ventures than is a neighbour who always has been a 
farmer, 

Because of the constant appeal to chance in the course of work, 
this trait was prominent in his recreation. The farmer enjoyed 
betting games.” “You bet’ was an idiom in common use. Farmers 
lost no good chance to bet. They paused before a calf or a hog was 
weighed to wager how much it would weigh. Of course they did not 
bet money, usually, but wagered just for the fun of it. At parties they 
bet on each other’s weight and on the weight of the girls. Then the 
blushing damsels stepped on the scales and the boys who lost their 
bets paid the “forfeits.” Almost any farmer was ready to swap 
horses on occasion. ‘This is an appeal to chance for “‘a horse is deceit- 
ful above all things.” 

Out of the uncertainty of the weather developed the habit of re- 
garding the results of work as beyond one’s control. Since the results 
were uncertain, because these depended on the seasons, if a man had 
worked industriously, he had done the best he could and could not 
be blamed if the results were poor. This does not mean that the 
farmer was indifferent to the results of his work. He sowed in order 
to reap. His purpose was to get results and no sight was so pleasing 
as that of his growing crops with their promise of a bountiful harvest. 
His attention was on the crop itself so that many farmers showed a 
strange indifference to the marketing of their crops after they had 
been harvested and stored. This attitude was due to the fact that 
in the early days the farmer produced primarily for his own consump- 
tion and not for the market. At first he was interested primarily in 
the crop results and not until later primarily in the financial results, 
At the same time it is true that, in the last analysis, the emphasis was 
on industrious working more than on the results. For, unless he 
worked industriously he would have no crops and, if he did work 
industriously, he might have none, in which case the comfortable 
frame of mind to cultivate was that, inasmuch as he had worked in- 
dustriously he had done the best he could. So industrious working 
was emphasized above results. 

This attitude has been of immense economic, political, religious and 
educational significance in rural life. As to its economic significance 


36 RURAL HERITAGE 


the idea was that in any unfavourable situation, as a spell of bad 
weather or an epidemic of plant or animal diseases or a time of falling 
prices of agricultural products, the farmer “must just work a little 
harder,” and so make up for the handicap as best he could. This 
attitude also resigned him to political injustices. If taxed unjustly 
his attitude was just to work a little harder, as he would work a little 
harder to overcome the handicap of a cold, wet spring. This attitude 
was essential also in religious resignation for the idea was that if a 
farmer worked industriously and did the best he could, he could trust 
God to give divine help when he needed it. ‘God helps those who 
help themselves.’’ This attitude was prominent also in rural education. 
Parents told their children to “work hard whether you learn anything 
or not. What you need is to learn to apply yourself.” It is this 
attitude to education that has kept the farmer fairly contented with 
a system of public education that gives little knowledge, awakens 
little interest in pupils and does not train the mind to meet vital 
problems but centres on discipline in industrious working. 

This attitude is pronounced and widely significant also in the be- 
haviour of the rural populations of Europe. Immigrants from Great 
Britain, Germany and other nations testify to it among their home 
people. Thomas and Znaniecki write of the Polish farmer: “The 
ultimate result of farm work does not depend exclusively upon the 
worker himself; his best efforts can be frustrated by unforeseen cir- 
cumstances and in a particularly good year even negligent work may 
be well repaid. On a background of religious and magical beliefs 
this incalculable element gives birth to a particular kind of fatal- 
ism. . . . The essential point is to get the help of God, the distributor 
of good, against the indifferent forces of nature and the intentionally 
harmful magical forces of hostile men and of the devil. Now... 
the process of work itself is a means of influencing God favourably; 
it is even the most indispensable condition of assuring God’s help, 
for without it no religious magic will do any good.’’* That is, by 
industrious work the farmer influences God favourably. We would 
not say that the American and the Polish farmer put the same relative 
emphasis on industriousness and on supernatural aid. One might 
say that the American farmer placed the emphasis on industrious 
working and also regarded it as one means of getting supernatural 
aid, while the Polish farmer is more absorbed in the supernatural side 
of production. But Americans placed a good deal of emphasis on 
the supernatural. The American farmer was, however, in a position 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 37 


more favourable to industriousness, because of his independent owner- 
ship of land, than are European peasants who work under landlords. 

Agricultural populations have, until recently, been comparatively 
easy to handle politically. This has been due in part to the weather 
attitudes of the farmers, to their resignation, their absorption in the 
process of work, their tendency to be satisfied with a mere living. 
So in Europe the landlord could divert to himself a good part of 
the products of their labour, much as a bee-keeper, by clever manipula- 
tion, takes a large part of the product of the industrious bee. The 
attitudes which made farmers an easy prey of landlords later resigned 
them to exploitation by business men and financial interests. For 
farmers conceived the processes of the business world much as they 
had those of nature, as incalculable, and emphasized mere industrious- 
ness instead of shrewd dealing with shrewd men. 

While the farmer’s attitude of absorption in the process of work 
was contrary to the business attitude which centres on the financial 
results of work, the farmer’s attitude passed into the business world 
and is found there along with the business attitude. Farmer boys 
carried it into business and the professions and men believed, and 
still do believe, that they should not look primarily to the financial re- 
sults; that, if a man has worked hard and has done the best he knew, 
whatever the results are, he has done well. This attitude is to be 
contrasted with the modern business attitude, which more and more 
has tended toward an emphasis on financial results; often these are 
the results of lucky speculation which involves little or no industrious 
working. Consequently in studies of the behaviour of business men 
we must always be looking for rural attitudes in business as distin- 
guished from the typical business attitude.* Some of the most success- 
ful business men were born and reared on the farm and owe their 
achievements to the fact that their speculative attitude was balanced 
by the old rural attitudes of industry and thrift. Also, in studies of 
the behaviour of scientific men we must always be looking for rural 
attitudes in connection with the typical scientific attitude.5 Some of 
the greatest scientists were born and grew up in the country and owe 
their achievements to the fact that their scientific curiosity was re- 
inforced by the rural attitudes of industry and thrift. The latter are 
seen in the tireless collection of facts and the saving of all facts, even 
those that served no scientific purpose at the time. As great a scientist 
as Darwin, in his autobiography, refers to his industry in a way that 
implies that he took great satisfaction in it, for instance, “My industry 


38 : RURAL HERITAGE 


has been nearly as great as it could have been in the observation and 
collection of facts.” And he tells us that it was the thought of his 
industry that gave him greatest comfort when the results of his 
industry were severely criticized. ‘When I have found that I have 
blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been 
contemptuously criticized, and even when I have been overpraised, 
so that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say 
hundreds of times to myself that ‘I have worked as hard and as well 
as I could, and no man could do more than this.’”’® Emphasis on 
unflagging industry is an attitude that has been prominent in the 
behaviour of scientists. Now it is not maintained that occupations 
other than agriculture will not develop this attitude or that it is solely 
a result of occupation at all. The habit of industry naturally develops 
in a temperamentally active person. What is maintained is that 
agriculture and the social contacts of the farmer’s community were 
favourable to it and that, thus acquired, it was carried by farmer boys 
into other occupations. 

Industriousness was, of course, not due entirely or essentially to 
the uncertainty of the weather. We have shown that it was merely 
accentuated by adverse weather. It was due to the hard and confining 
nature of the farmer’s occupation, He could not, like hunting peoples, 
lay off until he began to feel the pangs of hunger. From the time 
he began to prepare the ground for the seed his livelihood depended 
on his industrious cultivation of his crop. His animals required 
attention at least twice a day every day in the year. Industriousness 
was due also to the farmer’s isolation. To be sure working with 
industrious associates stimulates industry. On the other hand 
associates may distract one from one’s work. Because of his isolation 
the farmer was free of distractions. Industriousness was due also 
to the farmer’s independence. Because he owned his land and his 
instruments of production all he produced was his own. This in- 
dependence stimulated exertion. Even exposure to the weather stimu- 
lated industriousness for exposure developed endurance and endurance 
enabled the farmer to restrain feelings of weariness and discomfort 
that interfered with industriousness. Wherefore every condition 
under which the farmer lived contributed in one way or another to 
industriousness. 

Certain intellectual attitudes, also, were plainly accentuated by the 
uncertainty of the weather. This uncertainty inclined the farmer 
to hesitate to plan for the future any more than was necessary. So he 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 39 


was slow to make up his mind about anything, and slow to engage 
to do anything. He preferred to wait till the time came or to wait as 
long as possible. So his wife, whose work depended less on the 
weather than her husband’s, often was more decisive than he and 
had to make up his mind for him when the question at issue involved 
the movements of others so that a decision had to be made. But 
the women often had as pronounced an attitude of indecision as the 
men, because they derived their attitudes from the group atmosphere, 
in which indecision was pronounced. The phrases “I guess so” and 
“I guess not,” so frequently used in the rural districts, indicate this 
indecisive attitude of mind. Sometimes the farmer was a bit obstinate 
in his indecision. He wanted to keep the others waiting and show 
that nothing could begin to move until he gave the word. 

Of course the attitude of indecision cannot be said to have developed 
entirely from dependence on the weather. It is seen in men whose 
occupation requires constant reflection. Their minds are never quite 
made up on anything. Also, many men are temperamentally inactive, 
timid and indecisive. Also it is the characteristic attitude in a situa- 
tion before which one is uncertain. But uncertainty is not due 
entirely to the situation. It is due to lack of available knowledge. 
The farmer would be much less cautious and conservative, much more 
progressive if he availed himself of the knowledge within his reach. 
But, as will be shown presently, his attitudes caused him to depreciate 
scientific knowledge, to mull over and justify his own ideas. And 
one of the causes of this cautious, conservative attitude among farmers 
has been their dependence on the weather. 

Often indecision was not so pronounced as to impair efficiency but 
expressed itself in what was called the cautious attitude. The cautious 
farmer committed himself as little as possible but did not lack for 
decision at the vital moment. Farmer boys carried this attitude into 
business and politics and into the professions. It was seen in the 
administrator who took as his motto, “Learn by taking one step how 
to take the next.” The decisive farmer would not look ahead more 
than was necessary, often not as much as was necessary to plan most 
effectively but centred on doing thoroughly the task in hand. Thus 
decision was achieved by avoiding all possible occasions of indecision. 
This attitude for decision had a religious expression as follows: 
“The best way to find out God’s will for to-morrow is to do to-day’s 
task to-day.” ; 

Another intellectual attitude that was accentuated by the uncertainty 


40 RURAL HERITAGE 


of the seasons was the reliance on one’s own opinion, particularly on 
what one “happened to think.”” There was an inclination to think 
lightly of the value of scientific knowledge because certain knowl- 
edge seemed impossible in the face of the uncertainty of the seasons. 
So one man’s opinion, provided he was a man of experience, seemed 
as good as another’s. Hence the inclination to follow one’s own ideas 
and to accord every man liberty to do the same. Men were cocksure 
but tolerant. “You happen to think that way—all right, I happen 
to think this way.”’ A man might argue till doomsday but, in the last 
analysis, his ideas were what he happened to think—were his say-so 
as compared with somebody else’s say-so. In these later years verified 
knowledge has won more respect. For the progress of scientific 
agriculture has enabled farmers in some degree to “get the best of 
the seasons.’”’ They can do this in two ways, first by reducing the 
uncertainty as far as possible to a reasonable risk,’ and, second, by 
the cultivation of crops in such a way as to protect them from un- 
favourable weather. So they have come to have more respect for 
scientific knowledge, as contrasted with their own opinions, than 
heretofore. However, the individualistic intellectual attitude is still 
strong among the rural population. It is due not only to the un- 
certainty of the farmer’s life because of his dependence on the weather 
but also to his isolation and his constant action, which makes him 
averse to thought and discussion. Farmer boys have carried this 
individualistic attitude into business and the professions and the result 
is the proverbial American cocksureness. 

The uncertainty of the seasons and of prosperity as dependent thereon 
supported the traditional religious belief in special providence. The 
religious attitude was to observe the ceremonies prescribed by 
ecclesiastics as a necessary condition of having the favour of God 
who ordered the seasons. These ceremonies included particularly 
keeping the Sabbath and going to meeting. Clergymen were asked 
by the church members to be “more earnest at the throne of grace 
that the seasons be ordered in mercy.’’ To-day the superstition of 
special providence in connection with. the seasons lingers in various 
rural parts of New York, But the more intelligent farmers every- 
where believe the seasons are entirely determined by natural forces. 
The United States Weather Bureau has not only greatly aided agri- 
cultural operations and helped farmers to avoid losses that would have 
been enormous in the aggregate by its predictions of the weather, but 
also, by its attitude to the weather as something entirely due to natural 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 41 


causes which can be understood and made the basis of predictions, it 
has done more than any one agency to weaken the belief in special 
providence. A farmer who reads an account of the work of the 
Weather Bureau *® becomes acquainted with the scientific basis of 
predictions and learns the reasons for the frequent failures to predict 
correctly, which he had heretofore eagerly cited as proving that the 
scientific weather prophets ‘“‘don’t know it all.” 

The uncertainty of the seasons encouraged also the prevailing 
tendency to emotional thinking. The farmer was instinctively opti- 
mistic because we instinctively seek satisfaction rather than annoyance 
and, therefore, impulsively expect a pleasant rather than an unpleasant 
result. On the other hand the hard life with its weariness and never- 
ending work tended to make many a farmer feel that life was essen- 
tially evil. To convert this pessimism into the hopefulness that is a 
necessary stimulus to endeavour was the function of the religion of 
the time. Essential in the religion was the belief in a well disposed 
deity who could be depended on to help the farmer if he was indus- 
trious and did his part. Because of the prevailing conception of 
ideas as what somebody happened to think, no need was felt for a 
scientific verification of religious beliefs. Their ancient tradition and 
their wide acceptance were a sufficient sanction of them. And the 
fact that they did stimulate hopefulness was a still stronger sanction. 
In the absence of any pronounced attitude for inductive verification 
of ideas, the condition which most effectively conveyed an impression 
of their truth was that many people had long held them, were 
inspired by them and emphatically believed them to be true. The 
religious system, by stimulating hopefulness, stimulated industry. 
This complex religious attitude was accentuated by the uncertainty 
of the farmer’s economic life. The development of scientific agri- 
culture has diminished uncertainty, for scientific knowledge equips 
the farmer to cope with uncertainty to some extent. But the scientific 
attitude is still weak; the religious attitude persists. 

Rural attitudes due in part to the uncertainty of the weather and 
the seasons were carried by boys reared on the farm into business and 
the professions. These attitudes, owing to the different conditions 
of business and the professions, were changed in the process of 
adjustment to new conditions. That is, the process was not one of 
transference for the attitudes were changed in the course of the 
transference; it was rather a transmutation. 

The uncertainty of the seasons is not equally disturbing in all 


42 RURAL HERITAGE 


agricultural industries. Fruit growing is more precarious than grain 
growing. We should expect attitudes connected with the uncertainty 
of the seasons to persist longer in the more, than in the less precarious 
industries. On the other hand, some of the more precarious require 
much more scientific knowledge and skill than the less precarious. 
Fruit growing is more uncertain than grain growing but it requires 
more scientific knowledge. Wherefore, even though their industry is 
more uncertain, fruit growers are apt to be farmers of unusual intel- 
ligence and alertness and less subject to the weather attitudes than 
grain farmers. In all agricultural industries, however, the farmer is 
more or less dependent on the weather and cannot escape the effect of 
this on his character. 

The interest of the farmer in the seasons and in the weather from 
day to day, his exposure to the weather while he worked, the solitude 
in which he did much of his work, in short his dependence on nature 
and his life close to nature, disposed him to see in nature signs to 
guide him in his uncertainty. The mind finds uncertainty annoying for 
it interferes with action and adjustment, which is the normal state of an 
organism. It finds mystery perplexing for mystery means something 
to be explained and the mind is not at rest until satisfied with an ex- 
planation. Wherefore, in the presence of mystery the mind tends to 
swing to the stock explanations furnished by the culture of the group; 
and before uncertainty as to what is to be done it tends to follow rules 
of behaviour. The natural features most commonly used as signs in 
connection with the uncertainty of the weather were the colour of the 
sun, halos and coronas around the sun and moon, the colour and forms 
of the clouds, the appearance of the stars, the direction and strength of 
the wind, the course of smoke, the quality of sounds, the position of the 
leaves of the foliage and of the petals of flowers, the appearance of 
moss, the behaviour of farm animals, reptiles, flies, bees, ants, spiders, 
the flight and noises of birds, the appearance of the hills, whether or 
not there had been dew or frost on the previous night, and the position 
and phases of ‘the moon. Some of these signs were purely fanciful, 
others were more or less trustworthy.?°® 


ATTITUDES TO THE Moon 


The most widely observed signs and proverbs related to the moon. 
The moon was of all natural objects the most interesting. One cannot 
look at the unclouded sun, and the sun does not have regular phases 


ATTITUDES TO WEATHER AND MOON 43 


as does the moon. Furthermore, the moon appears after the day’s 
work is done when the mind is free to dwell on its various aspects. 
This is the time when the mind is anticipating the work of the morrow 
and, therefore, when associations of moon, weather and work are most 
apt to take place. How certain changes in the moon came to be 
relied on as rules of action we do not know and the farmer did not ven- 
ture any explanation as to the origin of the rules though he attempted 
to justify his confidence in them. The most important rule was that 
certain agricultural operations should not be begun in “the ole of the 
moon,” that is, during a waning moon. This rule was followed by 
the farmer in a great variety of operations. He would not plant 
anything in the “ole of the moon,” would not trim his trees in the 
“ole of the moon,” would not kill his hogs or tap his trees or set his 
hens in the “ole of the moon.” He planted, killed, and tapped ‘‘in the 
moon” as he called it, that is, while the moon was waxing. Many 
farmers would do anything in the waning moon that did not involve 
the processes of growth for its fruition. But there were others who 
extended the rule to the killing of hogs, tapping of trees, beginning 
of haying and other operations which did not involve the processes of 
growth. When questioned as to the why of the rule the reason given 
might relate to the particular crop in connection with which it was 
invoked or it might not. Potatoes were not to be planted in the wan- 
ing moon for they would all run to vines. Grain was not planted 
in the waning moon for it would all run to straw. Hogs were 
not killed in the waning moon for the pork would shrink in the pot. 
Trees were not tapped in the waning moon for it would shrink the 
run of sap. Some farmers seemed to think that as the moon was 
waxing so would the crops grow, and as the moon was waning 
to the point of disappearance so would the fruition of anything done 
in the waning moon. Other farmers would say, when questioned as 
to the reason for the rule, “What makes the tides, boy?” But neither 
this analogy of water raised by the moon with crops rising from the 
ground nor that of a waning moon with failing crops explains why the 
farmer followed the rule. He followed it unquestioningly because he 
had always done so, as had his fathers before him. If he seriously 
reflected why, the chief reason that came to his mind was that it had 
always been so. 

The ole-of-the-moon superstition seems to have been universal in 
New York and to have been widespread in other states and in Europe. 
Possibly it dates back to ancient times when the moon was one of the 


44, : RURAL HERITAGE 


principal objects of worship. It is followed to this day in certain 
parts of New York. And farmers who no longer observe it continue 
to be interested in the moon. Most farmers are pretty apt to know 
just what phase the moon is in and when it will change. Obviously 
the regulation of operations according to the phases of the moon was 
a source of great inconvenience. For instance, if ‘a good spell of 
weather” came in the waning moon the farmer could not go ahead 
with his planting. Gradually the more sensible farmers broke away 
from the rule, greatly to the dislike of their neighbours. In one section 
during the waning moon a neighbour came in when a farmer was 
cutting up potatoes for planting. ‘Don’t you plant in the moon?” 
asked the neighbour. “No, I plant in the ground” was the reply. 
Another farmer was less laconic, when, in reply to a similar question 
he said, “No, but we’ll harvest in the moon.’’ That is, he would get 
a good harvest even if he was planting in the waning moon. 

This superstition as to the moon was carried over into other ac- 
tivities. In some parts certain religious festivals must not come in the 
waning moon.’? It was an unpropitious time for going.on a journey 
and for social functions. 

The farmer had other signs in nature that served as rules to guide 
him in his work. For instance, one rule was that the time to plant 
beans is when the oak leaves are as large as squirrels’ ears. This rule 
was not necessarily a safe guide for cold, rainy weather and even frost 
sometimes came after leaves were that size. But the farmer followed 
the rule unquestioningly, vehemently, as if it had some sacred efficacy. 
A father condemned his son, who had settled on an adjoining farm, 
in unmeasured terms because he did not get his beans in at that time. 
When, in the second and third periods, the rising generations came to 
disregard these rules, this was a source of a good deal of ill-feeling 
between them and the older generation. 

The tendency to stick to irrelevant and inconvenient rules has per- 
sisted in agriculture as it has not in other occupations because of the 
farmer’s interest in the seasons and also because of his isolation and 
independence. Factory workmen cannot adhere to rules that interfere 
with their work because they are under employers who regulate their 
movements. Manufacturers, merchants and professional men cannot 
adhere to such rules because they are in intimate relations with others 
and competition begets an inclination to rid oneself of everything that 
interferes with efficiency. But the farmer is not dependent on an 
employer and is not in intimate relations with other men in his 


ATTITUDES TO. WEATHER AND MOON 45 


economic life. Left to himself he can persist in following traditional 
rules, and this is one reason for the slow development of scientific 
farming and of co-operative marketing. However, absorption in the 
process of work, mere industriousness in the conventional ways, is 
giving way to interest in the financial returns. And this interest is 
reacting on the process of work in a way to make it less subservient to 
ancient rules and more susceptible of changes in accordance with the 
growing scientific knowledge. 


CHAPTER VI 


TRADITIONAL FAMILY ATTITUDES 


HE attitudes of the rural family in New York were determined 

by tradition and by the social and economic conditions of the 

New World. In the Old World there was comparatively 
little migration up to the nineteenth century. Young people courted, 
married, raised a family and grew to mature life under the eyes of 
the relatives on each side. The situation of the American family 
was somewhat different. It was more isolated. To be sure immi- 
grants from England and Holland came in kinship groups 
or fragments thereof and settled in the New World in neighbourhoods 
the families of which were more or less related by ties of blood. 
When New Englanders migrated to New York, they often migrated 
in more or less related groups. However, as the population scat- 
tered from the eastern states westward over the national domain, 
there was an ever increasing separation from kindred. The result 
was that, in the New World, the family was less under the influence 
of outsiders than in the Old. 

In the New World a newly married couple was more independent 
economically than in the Old, for it was easier to get land. And if 
a boy could not get the necessary capital to buy tools and animals to 
start as a farmer, it was easier to get a job on public works, as roads, 
canals and, later, railroads than in European nations where less ex- 
tensive works were undertaken. So the young couple was more in- 
dependent economically in the New World than in the Old. The 
development of modern industry and the growth of cities still further 
increased this independence. 

Having indicated the difference between Old and New World con- 
ditions we have next to describe traditional family relations as they 
were received from the Old World. Then in succeeding chapters we 
shall describe the changes in traditional relations that resulted from 
the adaptation of families to the conditions of the New World. 

There are two distinct lines of tradition that determined family 

46 


TRADITIONAL FAMILY ATTITUDES 47 


attitudes in the rural parts of New York in the first century after 
the Revolution. These were the traditions of the Dutch settlers and 
those of immigrants from New England.t The Dutch attitude of 
husband to wife was a somewhat less extreme form of masculine 
domination than that of New England.? As to relations of parents 
and children, parental authority was as pronounced among the Dutch 
as in New England. The difference in the attitude of husband to 
wife is said to have been due to the early predominance of trade in 
Holland, as compared with English landlordism which encouraged the 
traditional feudal subjection of woman to man.® This difference was 
perpetuated by differences in economic conditions in the New World. 
The “more genial spirit of Dutch Protestantism as contrasted with the 
harsh lines of British Calvinism” and “the better soil and less rigor- 
ous climate of the Hudson Valley contributed to make life smoother 
and more genial in New York than in New England.” * The Dutch 
settlers penetrated beyond the Hudson Valley into the villages of 
central and western New York but rural New York was more largely 
settled by immigrants from England and New England than by the 
Dutch. English more than Dutch attitudes determined the civilization 
of New York. Ina study of the traditional family relations of New 
York, we centre, then, on the English Puritans, 

The New England family was essentially that of Puritan England. 
The English Puritans represented the developing middle class. This 
class had better homes than the lower classes and so emphasized 
family life as against the coarse social pleasures of lower classes. 
The Puritans were those who had risen out of the lower classes by 
superior thrift. Their thrift was one expression of their self- 
restraint. Another expression was sexual restraint. The Puritans 
had large families but opposed licentiousness. Female chastity was 
more emphasized than male because more important for safeguarding 
legitimate inheritance.6 The Puritan wife “obeyed her husband, 
calling him lord,” * and required strict obedience of her children. 
Parents selected husbands for their daughters and exerted a strong 
and often decisive influence in a son’s choice of a wife. This situa- 
tion was possible because of the strong attitude of filial obedience and 
also because of the importance of property considerations. For par- 
ents selecting mates for their children one of the most important 
considerations was what dowry the girl would get and what were the 
man’s financial prospects. “Daughters were usually allowed at least 
the right of refusal but they do not seem to have been prone to make 


48 RURAL HERITAGE 


objection. Mercenary marriages were in keeping with the nature 
of the hard-headed middle-class that took to Puritanism.” § 

The Puritans came to New England not as individual adventurers 
but as families. “It was because the hazards of life at home made 
it impossible to gather a competence for their children that the reli- 
gious enthusiasts sought a settled habitation overseas.” ® In New 
England the property side of marriage was prominent.?° Parents 
“contrived” profitable matches for their children and brought suit 
against young men who made love to their daughters contrary to their 
wishes.** But the wilderness life in the New World necessarily gave 
the young people more freedom than in the Old. For this reason the 
government of the New England community undertook to exercise a 
rigid censorship over family life.1* It supported parents in their con- 
trol of their children and it rigorously regulated the conduct of mar- 
ried people. However, parents were not permitted by the community 
to set the property standard so high as to prevent their children marry- 
ing readily. “In a new country, needing population, it was natural 
that pious authorities should frown upon any discouragement of legit- 
imate increase. Appeal to a magistrate was in order in case of un- 
reasonable opposition by those in charge of the young people.” *% 
Parents were entitled to secure the best match for their children but 
they must not be so particular as to prevent their marrying. The 
young must marry and once married they must live together.1* On 
the whole, however, the matches of the young were arranged by the 
parents in New England as in the Old World. It was the parents’ 
concern because questions of property figured so largely in marriage. 
This emphasis on the property side of marriage was bound to result 
in family pride and exclusiveness. Poorer families could not inter- 
marry with the well-to-do. Family pride resulted in sumptuary laws 
forbidding the wearing of ornaments and ribbons to those assessed be- 
low a certain figure. The law exempted families of magistrates or 
“such whose quality and estate have been above the ordinary degree 
though now decayed.” 1° “Family integrity reached beyond death. 
Much solicitude was felt by the New England people for the salvation 
of kindred. In many communities each family had a burying-place on 
the home-farm.” 1° “In the rapid expansion of New England fam- 
ilies there developed a tendency to the formation of patriarchal clans. 
Aubury noted the great number of half-finished houses. A man 


would build and occupy half of the structure. When his son married — 


the new couple finished and moved into the other half.” 17 


TRADITIONAL FAMILY ATTITUDES 49 


The authority of parents and the duty of filial obedience was backed 
by the kinsmen on both sides. Parents who were too severe or too 
lenient felt the adverse criticism of their relatives and of the com- 
munity generally. As the boy grew up his attitude of obedience was 
modified by his growing importance. He was of much more im- 
portance than the girl, as the future head of a family and a property- 
owner. As such he had a right to consideration and careful instruc- 
tion at the hands of his parents and a parent who evidently was not 
giving such instruction as to prepare his boy for his future respon- 
sibilities was condemned. 

It is evident that this traditional type of family, in which the mar- 
riage group is tied up closely with the kinship groups on each side 
and with the community, can exist only among a settled agricultural 
population. Just as soon as families begin to migrate they pass be- 
yond the influence of kinsmen and the community. This is precisely 
what happened to the American family. The attitudes of the Old 
World persisted in colonial New England because of the continual 
emigration from the Old World. However, with the opening up of 
the country after the Revolution and particularly after the War of 
1812, families were more and more removed from the influence of 
kindred and this resulted in changes in family relations. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE NEW CONDITIONS 


HE settlers of New York had to hew their farms and their 
homes out of the primeval forest.t With a few tools and 
farm animals and a virile religion men and women applied 

themselves to a task that required extreme exertion and unfaltering 
resolution. William Cooper, father of James Fenimore Cooper, wrote 
in his Guide in the Wilderness, published in 1810, of conditions among 
settlers in New York: “If the poor man who comes to purchase land 
has a cow and a yoke of cattle to bring with him he is of the most for- 
tunate class, but . . . he must do all his clearing with his own hands. 
Having no pasture for his cow and oxen, they must range the woods 
for subsistence; he must find his cow before he can have his break- 
fast, and his oxen before he can begin his work. Much of the day 
is sometimes wasted and his strength uselessly exhausted.” ? “The 
greatest discouragement was in the extreme poverty of the people, 
none of whom had the means of clearing more than a small spot in the 
midst of the thick and lofty woods, so that their grain grew chiefly 
in the shade; their maize did not ripen, their wheat was blasted, and 
the little they did gather they had no mill to grind within twenty miles 
distance. . . .” 3 Hardships like these had to be borne by the settlers 
generally. Similar experiences were repeated after the Civil War in 
the settlement of the country west of the Mississippi and pioneers of 
Iowa and Minnesota are still living to tell the tale.* 

The settlement of the new country went on in waves, each new 
generation sending settlers further westward. This westward move- 
ment altered the traditional family relations. The regard for relatives 
continued but relatives were scattered, families were isolated. Fam- 
ilies that migrated in groups became attached to one another regard- 
less of whether they were related or not, because of the hardships they 
went through together. Hardships likewise increased the attachment 
between husband and wife. People came to prize one another for 
what they were personally, regardless of their family connections. 

The wilderness finally gave place to fertile fields and comfortable 

50 


THE NEW CONDITIONS 51 


homesteads; prosperity succeeded the struggle and hardships of the 
pioneer period. This successful outcome of the great adventure gave 
the attitudes and beliefs of the pioneers a prestige and a sacredness, 
particularly their individualism, which has survived to the present 
time. A man’s worth was to be judged on the basis of his manhood, 
not his family connections or his possessions. Women as well as 
men laid the emphasis there. The esteemed man was not only 
courageous but generous for it was not merely what a man could do 
for himself but what he was willing to do for you when you were 
in a “tight pinch.” To be sure what he would do for you depended 
on what he could do—on his strength, his courage, his sagacity, but 
he might have all these qualities and still not put them at the disposal 
of his neighbours. 

The zest for adventure of pioneer days survived among the settled 
farming population. But the routine life conduced to action accord- 
ing to custom. Agricultural methods were as they had been for 
generations. The conditions of the New World did not favour any 
change. The farmers were clearing the land and the power used 
was muscle. They were cultivating small fields, as their forefa- 
thers had done before them. They were producing primarily for 
their own consumption. The means of transport were very lim- 
ited. The pioneering era had been, in some respects, favourable 
to change, for the pioneer had to be resourceful in order to 
maintain himself and his family in the wilds. But his precarious 
situation was unfavourable to mechanical inventions or carefully 
thought out changes in institutions. The frontier was favourable 
to impulsive variations from conventional behaviour, to indifference 
to law and to emotional religion.5 But the routine life of the succeed- 
ing generations conduced to the restraint of impulse, which accentuated 
adherence to custom. This adherence was increased by the prestige 
of the mighty pioneer folk ® to whom the customs were ascribed. 
The tendency to magnify “the way our fathers did” gave a 
sacredness to many ways to which the fathers had been quite in- 
different. 

Adherence to custom was due essentially to the isolation and the 
stress of work. The farmer and his family were up at day-break, 
in the fall and winter before. In the busy season he had the chores 
done, breakfast eaten and was in the field by six o’clock. The field 
work continued till six at night, with an hour off at noon. After 
supper came the evening chores. The work day extended from dawn 


Se RURAL HERITAGE 


till twilight. Even when it was not the busy season the day was 
scarcely less strenuous. For the clearing of the land went on through 
decades and whenever the farm work “slacked up” the farmer went 
to work in the stump lot. This work of clearing went on all winter. 
A much greater quantity of fire wood was required than later because 
of the use of fireplaces. The settlers and their immediate descend- 
ants were men picked by nature for the great adventure; and they 
set a standard of industriousness which seems incredible to the farmer 
of to-day. 

The women’s work was not less strenuous than the men’s.’ On 
Monday the washing was out before seven, or nine at the latest, and, 
if the weather was favourable, was dried before noon and the ironing 
was well on to completion before night. Then came the weekly 
baking day. The baking was done in an outside brick oven under 
a shed or in an arched brick oven built into the chimney by the fireplace 
or in a tin baker placed before the open fire. Any of these arrange- 
ments necessitated skilled management of the wood fire, which in- 
creased the labour of baking. Every week day was about as busy 
as washing and baking day. In addition to the preparation of meals 
and other housework there was the spinning to do and the clothing 
to make and mend, the milk to skim, pans to wash and the cream to 
churn, water to carry, and, in the summer and fall, the canning and 
pickling, the making of lard and candles and soap. In addition to 
the housework the women in some parts did a good deal of work in 
fields.® The lot of the farmer’s wife has somewhat improved with 
the progress of the agricultural and domestic arts but her life is still 
hard. And it is more difficult than formerly to get help at those times 
when it seems impossible to get along without it.® For the women 
of the neighbourhood help each other less than formerly and the de- 
velopment of modern industry has made it difficult to get hired help 
in the home. 

The farmer was the leader of the family in the daily work. He 
ruled his family rigorously, in some cases harshly, priding himself 
on the amount of work his wife could do,?° on her economy and 
efficient management, and on the amount he could “get out of” his 
boys. The strength of habit of the early days cannot be understood 
without constantly keeping in mind the necessity of long hours of 
hard work and of the director of the work keeping the family at it. 
Industrious habits are not in line with the impulses of the young and 
the father of the family was intent on keeping the family at work, that 


THE NEW CONDITIONS 53 


they might not lose their industry. He himself had been g0 trained; 
he “never let up, himself,” and his habit was to hold others to their 
work without any let up. This applied not only to economic habits 
but to all others. No child was allowed to lay off from work or to 
indulge himself in any other way or to stay home from church. Every 
habit was as important as every other in the sense that a letting down 
in any one would encourage a general letting down. There was 
always this sense of the opposition between the customs of the com- 
munity and the impulses of the “natural man.” The minister was 
constantly warning against “a letting down” in morals and he echoed 
the feeling of the austere parent. Thus the customs of the community 
had a fixity that reflected the fixity of the attitudes of the man of 
action before the stern demands made on him by his economic sit- 
uation. 

In the last analysis the austerity of parents in the rearing of children 
sprang from economic necessity. It was in the economic field that 
the father’s rule was most rigorous. In religious observances he was 
more lenient than the wife. Often he would have been a little lenient 
in the matter of going to church on a cold, stormy day but for the 
insistence of his wife. He was out-of-doors six days in the week 
and she was inside. Then, too, she was apt to have a more serious 
religious interest than he and to be more uncompromising about church 
attendance. His rigour was particularly noticeable in the economic 
sphere and explains much that to the casual observer seems hard and 
arbitrary. For instance, a father told a son if he would do his stent 
of work in the forenoon he would let him off in the afternoon to go 
hunting. The boy did his work but was compelled to work all the 
afternoon. Under a generous impulse the father made the promise 
and then the old fear that a little leeway would unsettle the boy’s 
habits impelled him to deny the half day of freedom that he had 
promised. When work became slack between hoeing and harvest, 
rather than let up for a day the farmer would set his boys to picking 
up stone. The farmer always took the lead in this strenuous life. 
As he gave his boys a stent of work for the day, so he gave himself 
one. And he was by no means more generous with himself than with 
them. The boys might fear him and dislike the monotony of the 
strenuous life, but they respected him. His power of discipline 
required that he never ask them to do what he would not do himself. 
They respected his efficiency and firmness, his stoical endurance and 
impartial fairness. The more thoughtful of them felt that it was for 


54 RURAL HERITAGE ; 


their good, that when they became of age they would be free, and that 
he would give them a start in life. 

Action was, therefore, the essential characteristic of the early days. 
In a society in which life opportunities were very limited, in which 
men were pressed into agriculture whether they would or no, there 
were inevitably many whose capacities better fitted them for some- 
thing else. But stern necessity demanded incessant action and this 
required a rigorous inhibition of impulses to the contrary. Hence 
the extreme power of endurance and self-denial that marked the early 
rural character. Hence, also, the eminently practical trend of the 
intellectual life. “Make your head save your heels’ was the maxim. 
Later, the development of education as a means of acquiring prestige 
emphasized the divorce of thinking from practice. Thus could the 
members of a leisure class display their distinctness from those who 
used their intellect chiefly in connection with their work. 

The strong action of the rural population gave people insistent 
impulses and the resulting tendency to wilfulness had to be met by 
a correspondingly strong power of self-restraint. Self-restraint was 
developed in children by firm parental discipline. Thus the child 
learned to restrain himself. But there was apt to be a good deal of 
wilful behaviour, particularly in vigorous boys, before the lesson was 
learned. So the belief came to be widely held that it is inevitable 
that boys should be more or less wilful and sow their wild oats before 
they settle down. The belief was due to the fact that the strenuous 
life strengthened impulsiveness and at the same time repressed a boy’s 
natural impulses, thus increasing the inclination to wild oats. But 
stern necessity, when he became of age, required that he settle down 
and temptations not to do so were far less distracting than to-day. 
To-day, there is less inclination to wild oats from repressed impulses, 
more from the pampering of children, and the parents of the pampered 
child often continue the indulgence after he grows up so that the 
wild-oats habits can be adhered to. He can drift along in an easy job 
and live a more or less dissipated life until he comes to feel he has 
gone too far really to make anything of himself. 

The individualism of the pioneer period therefore gradually under- 
went a change. While retaining the personal traits that are required 
to meet a crisis, it came to involve, also, those that make a man a 
successful farmer. It got its meaning more and more from the traits 
of the successful farmer, less from those of the pioneer. Thus 
American individualism has had a different meaning in different pe- 


THE NEW CONDITIONS 55 


riods, but jn all periods has derived its meaning from the men of 
prestige of the period, first from the pioneers, then from the success- 
ful farmers. Later the men who put through the great transportation 
and other enterprises on which the material development of the country 
depended gave a new turn to the ideal of individualism. Its meaning 
changed as one class of men of prestige succeeded another, though 
certain traits were characteristic of individualism throughout. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SEXES 


AMILY relations under the new conditions were determined 
by tradition modified by the individualism of the pioneer pe- 
riod and later by that of the successful farmer. In the Old 

World the Puritan had numerous children and this was the custom 
in colonial New England and New York and in New York after 
the Revolution. The large families were due to the very early 
marriages and to the traditional submission of the wife to masculine 
domination. The domination of the husband was endorsed by cus- 
tom. It was the custom to have large families. They were a source 
of pride. They were endorsed by the church. The church regarded 
the purpose of marriage as to have children, and the people con- 
curred. Some religious sects encouraged large families as a means 
of increasing members of the sect.2 There was somewhat more rea- 
son for having large families in those days than to-day * in that the 
more grown-up boys the farmer had the more land he could clear 
and till. Then too, a goodly number of stalwart sons gave a sense 
of security against the Indian and also against other families in 
communities where hostility and encounters between families were 
not uncommon,.* Also, the isolation of the farmer’s family made the 
companionship of a large family satisfying.» However, families often 
were larger than there was any conceivable reason for their being. 
The years when children were small were hard years. “But they'll 
soon be old enough to help,” was the parent’s thought, and children 
were put to work early. However, owing to the custom of early 
marriage, the years during which the farmer had the labour of a 
grown-up son or daughter were few. Particularly did the numerous 
children burden the mother, and this burden added one more hard- 
ship to a life of toil, and with other conditions served to give life that 
background of weariness and restraint under exacting tasks that de- 
veloped the attitude, “Life is a battle.” These hardships made reli- 
gion a vital thing in the lives of the people. Their abnormal life made 


THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SEXES 57 
necessary a religion that would enable them to maintain a normal 
peace of mind. 

American individualism did not, then, relieve the mother of the bur- 
den of a large family but rather increased it. In the Old World rural 
life encouraged large families but there was a sentiment against an ex- 
cessive number of children for the land was limited and too many 
diminished the life opportunities of all. This caused a sentiment 
among the relatives on both sides against very large families. But 
in America the isolated family set its own standard and the parents 
were proud of their numerous progeny, which ran wild in the wilder- 
ness, married early and scattered over the national domain. Because 
of the abundance of cheap land, numerous children did not neces- 
sitate a too minute division of the ancestral estate. 


SExUAL MoRALITY 


Sexual morality seems to have been more austerely regarded in the 
rural districts in the early days than to-day; immorality was much 
more harshly condemned. This was due to a variety of causes. First, 
economic conditions were favourable to chastity in that these made pos- 
sible early marriage and this with a life of toil and isolation tended 
to confine sexual relations to those sanctioned by marriage. Second, 
after the colonial period with its emphasis on property considerations 
had passed, there were no social or economic bars to free choice in 
marriage, wherefore there was felt to be little excuse for sexual im- 
morality. A man was free to marry the girl of his choice, if 
he could win her, and she was free to accept or reject a suitor. An- 
other reason for the intense feeling against immorality was sexual 
jealousy. Where there was comparatively free choice and people 
married for love, sexual jealousy was intense. Women approved of 
the jealousy of their husbands for it testified to their hold on their men. 
So married men and women tended to be strictly moral. Lovers were 
jealous of the attentions of other suitors to their sweethearts and the 
custom obtained of asking a girl for “her company” which meant that, 
for a reasonable period, she would not “go with” any other fellow 
and the fellow would not go with any other girl. <A girl who en- 
couraged several fellows was socially disapproved as a flirt. Girls 
felt this social restraint of too free behaviour on their part, which 
discouraged immorality. Still another reason for the intense social 
abhorrence of immorality was the intense regard for family honour. 


58 RURAL HERITAGE 


The father and brothers of a wronged girl were apt to take vengeance, 
which made seduction dangerous business. Also the absence of class 
distinctions favoured chastity. “In Europe the victims of lordly lust 
were chosen from classes that could not secure redress, while in Amer- 
ica justice was perhaps less biased.” 7 With the rise of class distinc- 
tions in the second period of rural development and the angling of a 
girl and her parents for a rich young farmer, her family had less 
reason to feel outraged if she was seduced by him; consequently public 
Opinion was not so strong against seduction as in the earlier period. 
Another reason for the sentiment against immorality was that the 
family was more or less isolated and the members were under the 
constant surveillance of the father; he and his family were under the 
eye of the neighbourhood and of the brethren and sisters of the church 
to which the family belonged. Hence there was no possibility of se- 
cret immorality, as to-day in cities. Another reason was that immo- 
rality was a sin and no sin escaped God’s all-seeing eye, which was a 
powerful deterrent in those days when the fear of committing sin was 
so pronounced. 

The intense disapproval of sexual immorality caused, among people 
of ultra-respectable feelings, a timidity about anything superficially 
associated with sex. Women were extremely modest. The jealousy 
of husbands was an incentive to wives to appear modest and daughters 
acquired this attitude from their mothers. The modesty of women 
often approached prudery. But prudery was, at first, more conspicuous 
in the villages and cities than on the farms. The farmer was raising 
all kinds of animals and the various operations in this connection were 
referred to in the family as a part of the day’s work. With the growth 
of cities and the mingling of men and women in work and recrea- 
tion there developed those informal social relations between the sexes 
that resulted in the passing of prudery. The increasingly free manners 
of city women were regarded by the more modest country women as 
immodest. Eventually these city manners, like city ways generally, 
began to influence the country. 


RELATIONS BETWEEN HusBAND AND WIFE 


The traditional relation of husband and wife was one of respect 


rather than affection. The respect was expressed according to the cus- 


toms of the group. Respect required that the wife obey and be faith- 


: 
; 


ful to her husband, care for his comfort and defer to him. He must — 


a 


THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SEXES 59 


be faithful to her and provide for her and treat her “well.” ® Religion 
emphasized the subjection of the wife to the authority of the husband. 
So did the law. The husband had a legal right to the person of his 
wife. She could not leave him unless permitted by the court, be- 
cause of behaviour of the husband that constituted ill treatment in 
the eyes of the court. Her parents could not support or protect her 
unless the court had given her permission to leave her husband. ‘“The 
wife had no right to the custody of her person or of her children. 
The husband could apprentice the children at an early age against her 
will and at his death could dispose of the children by will even though 
they were unborn. The formula constantly used in legal decisions was 
‘the wife is dead in law’ or ‘Husband and wife are one and that one 
the husband.’’’® However, the subjection of wives was not quite so 
abject as that implied in the law and the theology of the time. The’ 
situation was much the same as that evident recently in the movement 
to eliminate from the marriage ceremony the wife’s promise to obey. 
In the ceremony she promises to obey but that does not necessarily rep- 
resent the wife’s attitude to her future husband. So in those days 
some of the law and the theology on family relations was a dead 
letter, though not by any means was there any opposition to the use 
of the word obedience in the marriage ceremony. It represented the 
woman’s attitude to her future husband. It was Scriptural. There 
was a general tendency literally to apply Scripture to family relations. 
For instance, women were not expected to speak in religious meetings 
and St. Paul’s injunction to them to be silent in meeting was cited as 
authority. 
This traditional relation which obtained in colonial New York was 
not seriously challenged in the period of pioneering that followed the 
Revolution. The pioneer individualism on the whole maintained the 
traditional subjection of woman. “In the new world a woman without 
a man was so helpless, having no protection against frontier perils and 
small opportunity for procuring a satisfactory livelihood, and civic life 
was still so obviously a man’s world with its crudeness and fighting, 
that woman still ranked as a dependent on man... .”’?° However, 
the help that woman rendered man in taming the wilderness tended 
in some ways to make her more his companion than in the traditional 
relation. ‘The elevation that came in the status of woman was earned 
by devotion, labour, courage, self-control, heroism. . . . Women stood 
by their husband’s side and fought for life and little ones against hu- 
man and other foes.” 11 Nevertheless, she was still subject to man. 


60 RURAL HERITAGE 


His gratitude for devotion might make him generous, as employers 
of labour may be generous toward unusually good workmen. But 
in both cases the relation remains the customary one of subjection to 
authority. 

The individualism of the farmer, also, tended toward maintenance 
of the traditional relation. But here, also, economic conditions alle- 
viated somewhat the traditional subjection. ‘The American farm was 
a place of enterprise, not a place where a peasant eked out a customary 
subsistence, as in the Old World. The qualities prized in a wife, in 
addition to sexual attractions, were capacity to work and willingness 
to take responsibility. A man wanted a wife who would submit when 
he required it, but he did not want a merely submissive woman. He 
wanted one who would shoulder the heavy responsibilities of the 
mother of a large family and of a partner in an economic enterprise. 
So the exigencies of the economic situation inclined the husband to 
forego exercise of authority that repressed initiative and willingness 
to work on the part of the wife. A man who lacked initiative some- 
times depended on that of his wife. One man who was proverbially 
slow and procrastinating habitually depended on his energetic wife 
for suggestions to action. For instance; on a stormy spring day 
when he could not plow he stood deliberating and finally remarked, 
“T guess T’'ll go over to Rob’s and get some seed.” “Yes, I would,” 
his wife replied. ‘Yes, I would” was the formula on which he had 
come to depend. A wife had to be tactful about taking the 
initiative in her husband’s affairs just as he would hesitate to vol- 
unteer suggestions in the affairs of the household. Each had his 
and her own sphere of action. But, whenever a husband was slow 
and a wife energetic, she was apt to take an active interest in his 
movements. 

The usual situation was that in which the husband and father was 
absorbed in work and expected wife and children to respect his atti- 
tude and show a like industry. He thought of his children as workers 
while his wife was more apt to think of them as children. In one such 
family the mother sometimes would go out into the field in the middle 
of the forenoon to get a younger and weaker boy whom she knew was 
by that time getting tired but who would not give up. “I want you 
to help me, John,” she would say, thus shielding him from the father’s 
wrath at her interference and from the shame of the suggestion that 
he rest awhile, a suggestion which, of course, he would have spurned. 
One of the essential causes of conflicts between husband and wife 


THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SEXES 61 


was his absorption in work to the exclusion of the more human 
considerations which moved her. 

In spite of the alleviating effect of woman’s greater economic im- 
portance in the New World family, therefore, her economic subjec- 
tion continued. So did her sexual subjection. In sexual relations the 
husband customarily had the decision. That is, he had the “rights of 
husband.” Marriage was commonly regarded as the arrangement 
that made sexual intercourse moral and right and not only a right 
but a duty. For it was a duty to have children. The Bible com- 
manded it. Hence sexual intercourse was a duty on the part of both 
husband and wife. It was assumed that the initiative belonged 
to the husband and that prudential considerations were incompatible 
with it. However, it by no means follows that the husband felt justi- 
fied in indulgence to the point of physical and moral deterioration. 
But marriage gave him the decision and he consulted primarily his 
own well-being as he conceived it. The morality of this attitude was 
not seriously called in question by the wife. Marriage was thought 
of as sanctifying these sexual relations, though it was not clear “just 
what the preacher did that made the wrongest thing in the world the 
rightest thing in the world.” ! 

The first woman’s rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New 
York, in 1848, but its declarations against the various forms of the 
subjection of women were condemned throughout the state,* by 
women as well as by men. Until the second half of the nineteenth 
century the law gave the husband the custody of his wife’s person, the 
exclusive control and guardianship of their children, the sole owner- 
ship of her personal and use of her real estate, and a right to her 
earnings. The keenness of the sense of the injustice of this relation 
_ was dulled by its being the customary relation. In most cases, perhaps, 
the women acquiesced without any sense of injustice at all.‘* Since 
then, through the agitation of a few men who gave their lives to 
getting justice for the weaker sex, and through the efforts of a few 
women, the wife has won the place of a free individual before the law. 

We have, then, this situation: because of the peculiar economic 
conditions of the New World, the subjection of woman was alleviated 
in a way to encourage her to exercise initiative and to take responsi- 
bility; but she was still dependent on man. Conditions “impelled 
woman to marry, irrespective of love, as an alternative to a rather im- 
personal and perhaps menial existence in the home of parent or other 
relative; while, on the other hand, even in cities, facilities for com- 


62 RURAL HERITAGE 


fortable bachelorhood were not great in the early days, and in the 
wilderness a wife was valuable for her labour, her companionship, and 
as the presumptive mother of numerous sturdy workers.” 15 

Women were reminded of their inferiority while still girls. The 
boys were the important sex because they were the future heads of 
families.1* Boys avoided any work that was women’s work and any 
behaviour that was like that of girls. In their behaviour toward 
girls they showed a good-natured sense of superiority. The girl 
“toiled in domestic obscurity to educate the boys. The boy past 
twenty-one was free but the girl continued to work without wages 
after twenty-one as before. Marriage transferred her services to the 
husband. Food, shelter, and clothing were considered adequate re- 
ward.” 17 

It is easy for one committed to the doctrine of the equality of the 
sexes to exaggerate the discontent of the women of those days in their 
subjection. Their behaviour was regulated by custom and the fact that 
subjection was customary mollified its annoyance. Though affection 
was not emphasized, there was more opportunity for affection between 
husband and wife in American than in European nations, in which 
they were under the surveillance of the two groups of kinsmen to 
which they belonged. Then again, husband and wife worked together 
in the enterprise of rearing a family and accumulating a competence. 
The sense of having a helpmate endeared her to him after youth and 
beauty had passed away. The farmer was helpless without his wife. 
This, with the isolation of the couple, favoured the traditional eon- 
ception of marriage as one permanent union. The stern discipline of 
the environment, the necessity of constant work repressed in men and 
women illicit sexual impulses and fancies and impressed each with a 
sense of the other’s loyalty as a helpmate. 

In a sense the free American farmer was not free. He was not 
under a boss in his work. But nature imposed the stern necessity 
of work, and as the farmer was under the stern hand of 
nature so his family was under his stern hand. They understood 
the necessity that lay upon him. Their immediate subjection to him 
was ultimately a joint subjection of all to the necessities of their situa- 
tion. Nevertheless his rule often was more harsh than was required 
by the situation. As we have seen he laid upon his wife the burden 
of a large family that was wholly unnecessary. And he tended to 
excuse any impulsive domination on his part as necessary for the 
welfare of the family. 


_ THE RELATIONS BETWEEN THE SEXES 63 


The subjection of the wife involved annoyance, whatever her disposi- 
tion. If she was submissive this encouraged domination on his part. 
If she was proud, there was constant friction. Her station in life 
was practically determined by that of her husband. If he amounted 
to something in the community, as a recognized property owner or 
public official, her position was thereby enhanced. Whatever her 
own personal qualities she was something or nothing according to 
his competency. To be sure, a competent wife could stimulate an in- 
competent man but this did not get him very far. Consequently the 
subjection of a competent woman to an incompetent man was exas- 
perating and resulted in a good deal of nagging, just as the relation 
of competent workmen to an incompetent foreman exasperates the 
workmen and causes bitter comments on their part. The close eco- 
nomic relation of husband and wife made his incompetency evident to 
her as it would not have been later under the conditions of modern 
industry in which the man’s working life is unknown to his wife. 
Under modern conditions the wife, like the husband, can have an 
economic career and is, therefore, less inclined to nag an incompetent 
husband. 

The subjection of the wife reacted on her relation to her children. 
It “tended to make the boys overbearing, while the girls and mother 
were likely to be subdued with a sense of ‘woman’s place’ ”’ that pre- 
vented the full expansion of their personalities.1* This subdued atti- 
tude weakened women’s mental initiative, and made them conservative 
and less capable of inspiring children with a zest for personal develop- 
ment than they would have been in a more wholesome atmosphere. 
The woman of ideals strove to see her suppressed longings satisfied 
by winning opportunities for the education of an unusual son. 

The attitudes of authority and subjection have been essential in 
the relation between male and female from the beginning.1® The su- 
perior strength of the male has given him sexual domination and 
economic control. Tradition and the existing conditions have made 
the wife dependent on the husband. This relation being taken for 
granted, in the rural community, neither could use reason to any ex- 
tent in settling their problems, for the essential attitudes on both sides 
were accepted without reasoning. They were assumptions that neither 
would challenge; they had developed out of past conditions which 
were not understood and they were accepted as inevitable. Conse- 
quently the thinking of the wife who was not contented with her 
subjection consisted, not in challenging the relation itself but in in- 


64 RURAL HERITAGE 


voking sympathy in this or that painful situation of subjection. Her 
subjection made her skilful in appealing to the feelings of the members 
of the family in a way to enlist them against one who was “bearing 
on pretty hard” at the time. As to desires which she tried to realize 
in this way, they were not necessarily reasonable, but were in accord 
with her attitudes and impulses. The essentially irrational relation to 
her husband narrowly circumscribed her capacity to be reasonable and 
sensible in her desires and in her views of the problems that arose in 
the family. The husband’s mental attitude was much the same. 
Like that of his wife it was a product of the traditional relation. 
Furthermore, his attitude of authority prompted him to act without 
thinking. Consequently the husband’s treatment of his wife consisted 
largely in invoking feelings in her that would incline her to do as he 
wanted to have her do. In this he was aided by the fact that the 
family ways of doing were, for the most part, such as suited him 
rather than her; and, if necessary, he could determine things by a mere 
exercise of authority. The family ways were largely man-made ways 
and so he could rely on the tendency to adhere to custom and routine 
for things to go about as he would have them. 

As husband and wife grew older and strength of impulse waned 
and the necessity of the strenuous life diminished, the tendency was 
for these changes to strengthen the bond between them. Each was 
more exclusively in the society of the other than heretofore, for the chil- 
dren had mostly left home, and each was less absorbed in the things of 
this life, nearer the great unknown and more centred on religion. 
Thus the attitudes of authority and subjection receded into the back- 
ground. The loneliness, the weakness of age and the uncertainty of 
life made each cling to the other; and authority now came to rest more 
with the one who was personally the stronger, though long habit 
perpetuated deference to the man, 


CHAPTER IX 


THE RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN 


HE traditional relation between parents and children was one 
of parental authority and filial obedience. This relation was 
brought from the Old World? by the parents who emigrated 

therefrom and was enmeshed in the religious doctrine and the law 
of the time. As we have seen, the children were legally under the 
authority of the father and he could dispose of them in the ways per- 
mitted by law. Religion supported this extreme paternal authority.? 
However, the control actually exercised was not as despotic as that re- 
flected in the law and dogma of the time. With the westward migra- 
tion from New England, conditions tended to mollify the extreme tra- 
ditional authority. New Englanders came into contact with groups 
in which the attitude to children was less despotic, so that the com- 
munity made up of these various groups would not support as rigor- 
ous a control of children as did the New England community. In 
New York, “slighter attention was given than in New England to 
the regulation of domestic life. . . . Diversity of population and mul- 
tiplicity of minor sects tended to clannishness but forced broad toler- 
ance inasmuch as it was hard for any one group to gain unrestrained 
expression in the form of law.’’* Another cause of the change in 
attitude to children resulting from the western migration was that it 
isolated families. Isolation favoured an arbitrary parent as long as the 
children were small. But as they grew up, the father found it more 
difficult to maintain his authority. Furthermore, isolation inclined 
parents to make companions of their children. And the father had to 
have his children take certain responsibilities, which increased his re- 
spect for them. On the whole, then, American individualism dimin- 
ished the subjection of children. 

The isolation of the family, though it diminished the despotic aspect 
of the father’s authority, centred the attention of the children on 
that authority. There was no competing influence. Furthermore, 
the parental control united in itself several lines of influence. The 
parents were the directors of the daily work in which all participated. 

65 


66 RURAL HERITAGE 


And the family was not only an economic but also an educational 
organization. Until the establishment of the common school system, 
children got their education in the home, unless the father was suf- 
ficiently well-to-do to send his children to a “select school.” Even if 
they were sent to school, still the important training was the vocational 
and the training in character acquired in the course of work with the 
parents. The parents were also instructors in religion. To-day edu- 
cation is thought of as entirely the work of the school. Religious 
instruction is entrusted to the church. And children are relieved from 
as much work in the home and on the farm as possible that it may 
not interfere with their studies. Thus the authority and influence of 
the parents is reduced to a minimum. 

Not only in economic activity, education and religious instruction 
were children centred on the parents’ influence; they were constantly 
exhorted to do and think as their parents did and thought. 
The father and mother made it a point to agree in all their 
beliefs, as well as in all requirements of the children, in order 
that the parental authority might not be weakened by disagreement. 
The wife was apt to yield to the husband in cases of a difference of 
opinion, not only because it was customary for the wife to yield to 
her husband, but also in order to set an example that would strengthen 
the father’s authority over his children. The exampies of headstrong 
and wayward boys in every neighbourhood warned mothers that no 
sacrifice was too great to safeguard the father’s authority. In short, 
it was generally recognized that “a man must be boss in his own 
family.” 

Parental authority was rigorously enforced. There was a pro- 
nounced tendency toward wilfulness among boys, due to the fact that 
the settlers were the venturesome men and women who emigrated from 
New England or Europe and left the less daring behind; and their 
children inherited their assertiveness. This wilfulness was a challenge 
to parents. The wrath of the father at disobedience was something 
that no child could stand against. Corporal punishment was severe 
and no neighbour thought of interfering though the father might 
seem beside himself. Usually his severity was deliberate. Children 
knew what was coming and besought the intercession of the mother. 
Sometimes, however, fathers were easy-going and the mother had to 
do the punishing or see that the father did it. 

We must recognize also the part played by the community in the 
rearing of children. While many families lived isolated lives, most of 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN 67 


them had neighbours. Now the farmer was mindful that his authority 
depended not only on how he handled his children but also on how his 
neighbours brought up theirs. A general tendency to rigour en- 
couraged each parent in his inclination toward rigour. Furthermore, 
the wisdom of the most successful in the rearing of their children 
became common property. The church also played a part in child- 
training. The minister declared from the pulpit the accumulated 
wisdom on this subject, with a background of Scriptural texts and in- 
terpretation. 

Parental authority and filial obedience was the traditional relation 
but recent years have shown that this relation is quite apt to weaken 
when social and economic conditions become unfavourable to it. Its 
strong support in the early days was the economic position of the 
father. He directed the work of their joint agricultural enterprise and 
the attitude of obedience to him developed naturally in the course of 
work. The father realized the economic basis of his authority and 
kept at work as late in life as he could. When he was no longer 
able to work the habit of filial obedience remained but sometimes “the 
old man” was referred to in a voice of mingled pity and indifference. 
However, generally the aged commanded great respect and exerted a 
good deal of influence. In some sections to-this day if the grand- 
father is a guest in the house the grandchildren are not allowed to sit 
down to the table, even though there are empty chairs, until the 
grandfather has eaten and left the table. If a grandchild objects to 
this the grandfather is mortally offended. This respect for grand- 
parents in many cases seems to be not merely a social attitude but a 
custom consciously fostered by parents with the feeling that as they 
show respect for their parents so their children will be influenced to re- 
spect them. In communities where respect for aged parents is strong 
this attitude is transferred to old people generally. In one community 
if an old man who does not smoke enters the room, the smokers 
will put away their pipes, though they would not do so for a woman, 
An old woman exacts a ready obedience to her whims, which people 
not acquainted with this aspect of rural customs cannot understand. 
Among the agricultural populations of Europe also there is respect 
for old people as such;* but often when the old man is no longer 
able to compel respect as director of the work, the next generation are 
eager to have him out of the way.® In America he was more con- 
siderately treated than in Europe, where the cramped quarters of the 
family and their poverty made his querulous voice and the care of 


68 RURAL HERITAGE 


him annoying. In eastern countries where the old man’s religious 
significance as priest of the ancestral rights and near-ancester still 
continues, he comes in for great respect. 

The children early learned to “take responsibility.” It was because 
they had it thrust upon them. The wife who would shield a favourite 
son was reminded by the father that the boy must learn to take re- 
sponsibility. If he was to play the part of a responsible man when he 
grew up he must be held accountable for the performance of the tasks 
required by his parents. It was this economic relation that made the 
early parental authority and filial obedience more pronounced than 
later. Then and later there was the dependence of the child on the 
parent for support—a natural basis of obedience to authority. But 
later the association of children in work with their parents, in the 
rural districts, diminished and, in villages, largely ceased. And there 
developed the tendency of fond parents to indulge and pamper their 
children, to be proud of them as assets in family rivalry; and the 
children were not long in learning how far they could go, as objects 
of parental devotion and pride, in having their own way. It is dif- 
ficult to train children to take responsibility if the parent has no worth 
while tasks to hold them responsible for. For this reason the 
education of children should include intervals of earning their own 
living.? 

Not only the economic but also the political conditions of early 
America favoured a less despotic attitude toward children than the 
traditional one. ‘Many observers, commenting on the freedom al- 
lowed to children in the new nation, attributed it to the spirit of 
republicanism. The decay of patriarchism is a natural corollary of po- 
litical democracy; for the government recognizes, not families, but in- 
dividuals. The father counts no more as a citizen than does his grown 
son and the lingering of paternal authority beyond the majority of the 
son would be incongruous.” ®& However, the economic conditions were 
the essential ones. The political were given as a justification of re- 
quiring children to take responsibility; that is, it was said that, in 
a country where children become free on attaining their majority, a 
child must be made to realize that his freedom requires a corresponding 
sense of responsibility. But the requirement of responsibility was 
really due to the economic conditions. As economic conditions 
changed and families became prosperous, children were less and less 
required to take responsibility. But the political situation did not 
change. The making of citizens still required that they take responsi- 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN — 69 


bility. But economic conditions so changed that this was not done; so 
the economic conditions were essential. 

One set of conditions that affected the relation of parents and 
children had to do with working: the father directed the work of the 
children; the children felt a due responsibility for their performance 
of their share of the work under the direction of the father. A second 
set had to do with the accumulation of the wealth that resulted from 
their united efforts. The parents planned to give each child a certain 
part of the family accumulation when the child married and started 
in life. Parents desired their children to start with a certain standard 
of living and not to be a disgrace tothem. Many fathers and mothers 
laboured that their children’s lot might be, if possible, somewhat easier 
than their own had been.® On the death of the parents the property 
was divided among the children. The justification of inheritance 
conventionally given was that children are entitled to inherit what they 
have helped to create. This justification obviously has no weight in 
the case of village and city dwellers, where children do nothing to 
help their parents accumulate. 

Parental authority and filial obedience naturally resulted in parents 
taking quite a positive interest in their children’s love affairs and in 
children deferring to their parents more or less in this vital matter. 
The interest of parents was due not only to their solicitude for the 
welfare of a child in a matter that so vitally affected its welfare, but 
also to a feeling that the parent had a property right to a voice in the 
matter, inasmuch as the child’s spouse, as well as the child, would 
ultimately share in the parent’s property. The father, particularly, 
wanted to feel right as to the deserts of those who would share with 
his children the fruits of his long years of toil. Hence the father’s 
disappointment at his son’s marrying a “flighty” girl or a “sickly” 
girl or at his daughter’s marrying ‘a good-for-nothing fellow.” 
Marriage failures were more painful to the parents in the early days 
than later because the couple less frequently went to some distant city 
where the son or daughter could conceal his or her family troubles. 
Married children were apt to settle near by and to be more or less 
intimately associated with their parents. When, later, children left 
home when young to earn their living in the city, they felt more 
independent. They became intimate with young people whom the 
parents did not know and about whom they were, therefore, less com- 
petent to have an opinion than about young people in the home region. 

The situation of the early family gave the members a strong sense 


70 RURAL HERITAGE 


of need of each other’s protection. Because of the isolation they were 


dependent on one another for companionship. Then too, when the | 


children were old enough to marry, starting in life was not, as it is 
for many to-day, a matter merely of getting a job in some city and 
renting two or three rooms to live in. In those days it was apt to 
mean getting a farm or setting up in business, for which the help 
of the parents was required. As children felt a need of the help of 
their parents, so parents felt a need of their children’s help. When 
the farmer or his wife died, if there was no son or daughter at home 
one of the married sons or daughters moved on to the old homestead, 
to make a home for the surviving one. Or when the farmer and his 
wife wanted to lay down the burdens of active life a married son 
came with his family and lived with the old people or in a separate 
part of the house. Or the old couple might go to live in the village. 
It was generally understood that, as a rule, “no house is big enough 
for two families.”’ 

This dependence of parents on children intensified their affection 
for their children. Although farmers’ sons were ambitious to migrate 
to where they “could do the best,” and although this ambition was 
encouraged by parents, and although daughters were brought up to 
feel they must go with their husbands wherever they could do the best, 
yet there was a contrary tendency. Parents were apt to be secretly 
glad when children decided to settle near by, and they often attempted 
to dissuade a son from “going west’’ and promised to “do well by 
him” if he settled near by. 

The dependence of parents on children was never admitted by the 
parents. The father, especially, was apt to treat his grown-up son 
in a very casual and indifferent way.7® Because parents were enter- 
prising workers and aggressive directors of work and because of the 
attitude of independence of the American farmer, there was one thing 
he could not stand and that was to feel dependent on his children. 
If the aged parents had property income sufficient to maintain them, 
they felt independent fundamentally, even if they were not able to 
live alone. And an economically independent man or woman was 
more apt to have the respect of, and to be considerately treated by a 
son-in-law or a daughter-in-law than one whose existence was “a 
drain on the family income.” 

Grown-up children were apt to have an attitude of independence of 
their parents. This was due to their training. The boy wanted to 
show his father that he could make good as an independent farmer, 


a 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN 71 


for the father had held before his sons from their earliest years the 
fact that some day they must shift for themselves. That, he main- 
tained, was the reason for his rigorous discipline. So self-reliance 
became to a boy the essential attitude of manhood. Asa boy, he was 
constantly priding himself on the things he could do alone; and he 
was exasperated when anybody tried to help him lift a load or perform 
a task that taxed his strength. As he grew up he was more and more 
apt to differ with his father on the way things should be done. Self- 
reliance tends to develop mental initiative. Finally he came to man- 
hood and was eager to demonstrate the supreme proof of manhood— 
that he could support himself and wife independently. Another cause 
of the independence of the young farmer was the attitude of his wife 
to her husband’s parents. The wife was more apt to be jealous of 
her husband’s family than he of his wife’s family, because, in spite 
of her family, the husband was traditionally boss of his wife, whereas 
she was subservient to him and did not want her subservience increased 
by his parents’ attitude of authority over her directly, or indirectly 
through their influence over him. She was quite apt to imagine that 
her husband’s parents assumed the right to an undue exercise of 
authority. Because the wife was not traditionally boss of her husband 
but he of her, so that she had to control him by influence, she 
was more jealous of a contrary influence over him than he of one 
over her. Wherefore, the wife’s influence was apt to be in the 
direction of living at some distance from his family and being in- 
dependent of them,*? 

The isolation of the rural family deepened the attachment of hus- 
band and wife, also of parents and children. There was little that 
was unfamiliar, and so there developed a deep attachment for the 
familiar scenes and, particularly, for the familiar faces. People were 
very apt to be homesick away from home. Newly married girls, in 
the isolation of the new home yearned for the parental roof. 

When a boy left home he for the first time became conscious of the 
family solidarity; and the tendency was to express in letters the 
loyalty and the longing for the familiar faces. Often this was 
prompted also by an impulse to make those at home realize that, while 
they could not appreciate the ambitions that impelled him to leave 
home, and could not understand why he stayed away so long without 
making them a visit, he was as loyal as any of the children. Too 
prolonged a stay tended to weaken the x erie s belief in the loyalty of 
the absent one, 


72 RURAL HERITAGE 


Because of the sense of family solidarity there was an emphasis 
on the necessity of agreement between all the members.??. Ordinarily 
this was not difficult to secure because, on account of filial obedience 
and the isolation of the family, the children were apt to differ little 
from the parents in essential beliefs. Children derived their religious, 
political and other beliefs about as they did their table manners. 
Thus the differences in beliefs that divide families to-day were less 
in evidence. However, when there was a difference in religious beliefs 
it was more serious than to-day because of the greater seriousness that 
attached to religion. Not only in essential beliefs but especially in 
the day’s plans, the economic solidarity of the family called for agree- 
ment. When the family became less of an economic unit, when less 
work was required of the children and they were being educated in 
the village school “to be something beside farmers,” they were ac- 
corded greater freedom to have their own opinions. The tendency 
was for the child to feel at variance with its parents in connection 
with certain beliefs and ways of doing and possibly to “look down on”’ 
them a little.*% 

The attitudes that determined family relations entered into the 
determination of community relations. or instance, honour, that is, 
“always do what you say you'll do” was an attitude inculcated in 
children by parents. Children observed this attitude in their family 
relations and, when they grew up, it was transferred to community 
relations. Honour in the community meant “Your word as good as 
your note.”’ In the discipline of his children the father observed this 
attitude. He laid down the law and then “stood by his word” 
and punished any child who disobeyed. He punished in spite of ex- 
tenuating circumstances because “unless I do as I say I will my 
children won’t respect me.” In like manner the local justice empha- 
sized certainty of punishment according to the letter of the law. He 
followed the legal doctrine that it was more important that the law 
should be certain than that it should be just. 

One reason for the respect for law of the early neighbourhood was 
the child’s respect for the father’s word. This attitude of respect for 
parental law was transferred to the law of the community when the 
child grew up. The law of the community was not an impersonal 
thing for it was thought of as sanctioned by God. The morality of 
the community, like the law, had this personal sanction. As one man 
put it, “My religion is not my conscience but what lies back of my 
conscience.” 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN 73 


This respect for law was not at all inconsistent with the tendency 
to “law it” for, as the child ran to enlist the parental authority against 
a tormenting brother, so the impulse of the grown man was to “have 
the law on” a high-handed neighbour. A man who won a lawsuit 
declared, “TI tell you the law is a great thing.” It was a great thing 
because of the universal respect for it and the certainty with which 
the citizen could rely on it to protect his rights. If ever a farmer 
seemed too strong for the law and managed by his influence to escape 
its strong arm, the aggrieved party declared that a just God would 
one day punish him. 

Children seem to have somewhat less respect for their parents than 
formerly. One reason is that parents have become less directors in 
work and correctors of behaviour and are more indulgent. And 
adults have less respect for the law than formerly. It is because “‘the 
child is father of the man.’ Family attitudes are transmuted into 
community behaviour. The indulged child becomes the self-indulgent 
man and, in his insistence on self-indulgence that is forbidden by the 
law, he is impatient with the legal restraint. This tendency is ag- 
gravated by the influence of the crowd, or, as we say, the trend of the 
times. When the practice of indulging children is spreading, the 
discipline of children becomes more difficult. And when the violation 
of law by these grown-up children is widely prevalent, who will en- 
force the law, since law enforcement in a democracy depends on 
“public sentiment” ? 

The attitude of the children themselves played no small part in main- 
taining the parents’ authority. Children would repeat the comments 
made by the parents about the behaviour of one of their number. 
A mother would criticize a child’s stubbornness and the other children 
would take it up. It must be remembered that, in those days, children 
were more in the home than in these days of public schools and social 
distractions, also that parents were more apt to show indignation at 
the perverseness of children than are parents to-day. This indignation 
impressed children and stirred similar reactions in them toward a 
perverse one of their number.'* In the same way the gossip of the 
community concerning a recreant member, and particularly the indigna- 
tion of the minister in his denunciation of sin, tended to stir the com- 
munity against sinners. Here again we find in family and in neigh- 
bourhood behaviour similar attitudes. 

The father did not rely entirely on his power to enforce obedience. 
He aimed also to invoke obedience by the manifest impartiality of 


74. RURAL HERITAGE 


his rule. Impartiality was a maxim that was constantly kept in mind. 
But it was concerned primarily with externals, not with strict justice. 
The aim was to appear impartial before the other children. Though 
a conscientious child deserved more consideration than one who was 
not, the parent hesitated to give it lest the other children should not 
understand the reason for it and should feel that the parent had shown 
partiality. This was also the attitude of the local justice in deciding 
litigations. He was less concerned with dispensing fundamental jus- 
tice than with deciding justly from the point of view of the cus- 
tomary ways in which people lived and business was carried on. 
That is, he looked at things from the point of view of the public, 
which does not know all the ins and outs of a case, and his aim was to 
decide in a way that would seem to the public impartial and fair. 

We have noted certain contrasts, in this and the preceding chapters, 
of the individualistic American family with the European type de- 
scribed in Chapter VI. In America the social standing of an individ- 
ual was a good deal determined by his personal qualities, particularly 
his wealth-producing qualities, and, later, by his wealth without 
primary regard to his personal qualities; his standing was not deter- 
mined chiefly by his class and by the standing of his family in that 
class, as in the Old World.15 This is not saying that a man’s family 
had no influence on his social standing. The public in America al- 
ways has judged people indiscriminately as members of the various 
groups to which they belong and this is true in a rural as well as an 
urban population. But, in America, economic conditions put a 
premium on personal success and conspicuously successful men were 
thereby lifted above an indiscriminate public judgment and judged as 
individuals, not merely as members of a family. This situation con- 
tinues to-day. The contrast between European and American con- 
_ ditions comes out when Europeans migrate to the United States. 
Then the individual is isolated almost completely from his family 
group in the old country. He is judged as an individual and his 
standing is determined by his economic success. If his success is 
marked it is the more astounding to him because of the difficulty in 
his home country of getting recognition as an individual. It is “the 
comparison with his own previous condition and the condition of his 
people which makes him feel his personal importance in so strong and 
exaggerated a way.” 16 Polish families in America who want to 
maintain the Polish family solidarity find this to be impossible because 
in Poland it is maintained by the influence of the whole community 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN) 75 


of families on each, while, in America, the family is isolated, or the 
Polish community is in close contact with the great American civiliza- 
tion which discredits old-country beliefs in the eyes of the younger 
Poles. And “the members of the new generation, brought up in this 
new environment, are more likely to show a solidarity with one an- 
other as against the parents than a solidarity with the parents as against 
the younger members of the family. Finally, economic independence 
comes much earlier than in the old country and makes a revolt always 
materially easy... . 

“The immigrant can therefore control his children only if he is able 
to substitute individual authority for social authority, to base his in- 
fluence, not upon his position as representative of the group, but upon 
his personal superiority. But this, of course, requires a higher de- 
gree of individual culture, intellectual and moral, than most of the im- 
migrants can muster. The contrary case is more frequent, where the 
children assume a real or imagined superiority to the parents on ac- 
count of their higher instruction, their better acquaintance with 
American ways, etc.” 77 Thus the immigrants from rural Europe go 
from the extreme of family conservatism to the extreme of individual- 
ism; and the conventional family of the old country is, in one or 
two generations, transformed into individualistic families in the new. 

This individualistic family has begun to develop in European na- 
tions. It is due to the development of modern industry and the growth 
of cities. Thomas and Znaniecki point out that the individualization 
of the Polish family takes place when Poles emigrate from the rural 
districts to the cities of Poland. This emigration separates the in- 
dividual from his family, makes him economically independent of 
it, and enables him to found a family and to support it independ- 
ently of his relatives in the country and, perhaps, to win a higher eco- 
nomic position than they have.1S Thus, in European nations, with 
the development of modern industry and the growth of cities, the 
tendency is toward the development of an individualistic family, 
though conditions in America have given an impetus to this develop- 
ment found nowhere else. 

The individualistic family is an egoistic family.1® It is the product 
of the individual’s release from subservience to his kinship group. 
The young man feels that he is thereby free to satisfy his own im- 
pulses, and, when he marries, to centre himself in his family. He is 
not trained to feel any social responsibility. The nearest he comes 
to this is to feel an impulse for the social recognition of the family in 


> 


76 RURAL HERITAGE 


the community. This impulse is satisfied by winning what the com- 
munity is centred on—material prosperity. It is satisfied regardless 
of the evil effects of its satisfaction on others. Wherefore, the in- 
dividualistic family is by no means a type that conduces to social prog- 
ress. It is a transition stage in the change from social subservience 
to kin to a rational social accountability. 

The change from the individualistic to the rational family is one of 
the most intricate and interesting studies in ‘social psychology. It 
may be studied in a family of the middle class in which the father is 
a hard-working man and the mother and children are intent on having 
the standard of living of families just above them. The father has 
in mind making his boys enterprising workers like himself, competent 
as he is to make and save money. He reluctantly acquiesces in their 
idleness while going through the public school, not however without 
frequent protests, especially as idleness means more or less frivolous 
and expensive living on their part, for which he has to pay the bills. 
His wife insists that they ought to have what other children have and 
to be permitted to do as other children do. If the husband remains 
obdurate, the wife feels she is not having what is due her and the 
children feel they are not having what is due them. Thus develops 
in the family a resentful attitude toward the father. He is a hard- 
working man and feels he must have rest in his home. And he cannot 
rest in an atmosphere of dislike. They are not hard-worked and so 
not in need of rest as he is. So they have the best of him and he may 
surrender to the standard of living they demand “in order to keep 
peace in the family.” But this only increases their demands on him 
and compels him to keep his nose to the grindstone. Thus the head 
of the family, instead of being the dominating figurt, as in the first 
period, finds himself more or less dominated by his family. 

This development is most marked in the villages and cities but is 
seen to some extent in the rural districts. As one indignant and hard- 
working father exclaimed: “Things have come to a queer pass in 
these days. Your family demand a standard of living and a costly 
education that keeps your nose on the grindstone all the time. In 
spite of all you can do your children are growing up utterly inefficient, 
they are living a useless life, the money they demand for such useless liv- 
ing is outrageous, their mother says they ought to have it because other 
children do, and here you are working your head off that they may 
grow up frivolous and good-for-nothing.” Such is the natural out- 
come of the individualistic family, the family that lives for ease and 


a 


RELATIONS OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN 77 


social recognition. The pace is set by the families where money comes 
easily and in abundance, much of it made by lucky speculation. The 
first step toward becoming a rational family is this experience of 
the annoyance and folly of the behaviour of the individualistic family. 
The mother, instead of the father, may be the one opposed to the ex- 
travagant living and other follies of social rivalry. Whichever it is, 
headway is not made against the children and the parent bent on so- 
cial recognition until the one who opposes them can give good reasons 
for his or her opposition to their behaviour. Those reasons lie in a 
sound theory of the social accountability of the family. Social prog- 
ress requires that children grow up to be efficient workers; that is 
why they should not be allowed to live a frivolous, indolent life. 
They should have respect for other people’s property; that is why 
they should learn the worth of a dollar by having to earn it. A sound 
theory of social accountability assumes that boys and girls are to 
be trained to be workers, not men at leisure and social ornaments ; that 
they are to be trained in an active and virile sympathy with all groups 
of workers; that society has no use for the self-centred family. It is 
through the stand of parents, equipped with a sound theory of social 
accountability, against the attitude in their families for ease and social 
recognition, that headway is to be made against the individualistic 
family. 

Another force that is making for the socialization of the family is 
the social conflict occasioned by the individualistic family. Individ- 
ualism makes men wilful in the pursuit of their economic interests. 
The success of the strong and wilful invariably results in the defen- 
sive organization of others for the better realization of their interests. 
The families of those organized are exalted above their individualism 
by the appeal of the interests of the organization.?® Agricultural or- 
ganizations and labour organizations may thus inspire their members to 
sacrifice the petty aims of the individualistic family for the sake of 
realizing the purposes of the organization. 


CHAPTER X 


RELATIONS OF KINSHIP 


TES of kinship were much stronger in the early days than 
later, Family life in England and Holland emphasized 
the solidarity of the family with the kinship groups on 
both sides. This Old World tradition long affected family life 
in the colonies. The interest in tracing the genealogical tree was 
an expression of this sense of solidarity of kin. The sense of kin was 
not due to consciousness of a common descent but a common descent 
was of interest because of the sense of kin. To a degree, perhaps, 
it increased the sense of kin, but it served as a plausible explanation 
more than it operated as a cause. 
In the New World conditions for a time favoured a continuance of 
a live sense of kin. Kinsmen settled in neighbourhoods of intimately 
associated families. Even if not congenial, kinsmen associated more 
or less intimately from a sense of duty. The strength of family ties 
described in the preceding chapters fostered ties of kinship. Children 
of the same family eventually founded other families, and ties between 
these families were strong in proportion to the strength of the ties 
between the children of the original family. For several reasons the 
ties between brothers and sisters were unsually strong in the early 
neighbourhood. First, the family was a more or less isolated group, 
often widely separated from neighbours, and children were much in 
each other’s company. ‘Also, there were no places of amusement to 
distract the children from the family life. Then too, the family was 
an economic unit. Boys and girls were put to work as soon as they 
were old enough to be of any use, and they worked together until 
they founded families of their own. So each early learned to assume 
responsibility. Because they assumed responsibility for helping the 
parents when young this attitude continued when they grew up and 
the parents grew old. Even after they married they felt under obli- 
gation to help their parents, when necessary, and to care for them in 


old age. This sense of a common responsibility united brothers and 
78 


RELATIONS OF KINSHIP 79 


sisters in an attitude of loyalty not only to their parents but to each 
other, which endured on through mature life. 

To be sure there was much strife between children. Sisters often 
were jealous of one another and when they married their children ac- 
quired the dislike between the families. Brothers were rivalrous and 
sometimes hostile toward each other. The strife was augmented by 
the influence of the acquisitive and self-centred attitudes of the father, 
which infected the children. The tendency of brothers to quarrel and 
when older to disagree over property is seen in agricultural communi- 
ties the world over. “Brothers quarrel but remain brothers” was a 
proverb in Europe and America. In spite of strife in the family, 
the sense of family solidarity continued after the children had grown 
up and founded families of their own. Married brothers and sisters 
continued after marriage to live in the same neighbourhood or in 
near neighbourhoods so that their children were intimately associated. 
A brother and a sister, out of loyalty, and often fondness for one 
another, fostered this intimacy of their children. The cousins realized 
they were expected to like each other. Thus kinship was an incentive 
to social intercourse, among families isolated from the world; and it 
strengthened the feeling that one could count on another in time of 
need. A person naturally turned to a kinsman for companionship, 
providing the latter was not uncongenial or forbidding, rather than 
to an outsider, simply because “blood is thicker than water.” A man 
who did not warm toward kinsmen was called unnatural. As a re- 
sult of this interest in kinship people were fond of tracing, by the 
hour, the kinship of this family and that family of the community; 
and they “counted” relationship out to second and third cousins. 

Because of the emphasis on kinship people were quick to “claim 
relationship,” particularly if the claim would reflect any credit on 
themselves. They were insistent on the duty of relatives to recognize 
the claims of relationship and to associate with one another rather than 
with outsiders. There were family reunions on holidays. And 
in the summer between haying and harvesting there were family 
reunions held in the open, which drew relatives from far and wide. A 
man who for any reason held aloof from this kinship association was 
intensely disliked. 

Because it was customary for kinsmen to feel more sympathetically 
toward one another than toward outsiders, it was the more painful 
to have trouble wth kinsmen. Hence the maxim, “never work for 
your relations.” The reason for this was explained on the ground 


80 RURAL HERITAGE 


that “you don’t want to have any trouble with your relations, so it 
is better not to work for them.” An employer would expect more of 
a workman who was his kinsman because the latter would be ex- 
pected sympathetically to enter into the work and to exert himself more 
than a hired labourer. The kinsman would not want thus to exert 
himself nor would he want to have words with his relative. So he 
had better not work for him. 

Interest in kinship has diminished because kinsmen now scatter over 
the national domain and lose sight of each other. ‘Where this is not 
so, other conditions have weakened ties of kinship. Family ties are 
somewhat less close than formerly, so the families of brothers and 
sisters care less for one another. The people with whom one inti- 
mately associates to-day are apt to be those with whom one is thrown in 
the course of work or recreation. Sometimes a man who wins a 
high station associates with others in that class and takes care to avoid 
relatives in a lower station. The fact of kinship is not entirely dis- 
regarded and forgotten. A man may give a relative financial as- 
sistance if the need is brought to his attention. Kinship is still felt to 
constitute more or less of an obligation, but the interest it once 
awakened has passed. | 


— 


CHAPTER XI 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 


HE New World was settled for the most part by people of the 
middle class of the various European nations. The middle 
class originally arose out of the lower by superior industrious- 

ness, shrewdness and thrift. The Puritans of England and Holland, 
the Huguenots of France were middle class people. These people used 
the increasing economic freedom of the sixteenth and succeeding cen- 
turies to accumulate wealth and to provide themselves with the com- 
forts of home that had begun to appear in the fifteenth century— 
cottages with chimneys, utensils, window-glass, better beds. Hence the 
distinction between the man who had the energy and shrewdness to 
provide himself with a comfortable home and the thrift to accumulate 
property and the ignorant, self-indulgent, less industrious workers. 
The energetic, self-restrained, home-loving people became the Puritans, 
and were distinguished from the lower class on the one hand and from 
the self-indulgent aristocracy on the other. The Puritans found their 
satisfaction in their home life and withdrew from the coarser revelry 
of the community. They opposed the Roman Catholic church to 
which the lower class belonged, as well as the Church of England as 
the church of the aristocracy. 

Essential in the Puritan character was the acquisitive disposition. 
He was bent on the accumulation of wealth. This required restraint 
of impulses to spend; also saving of time that as much of the day as 
possible might be spent in gainful work; also saving of energy, which 
involved sexual control, that energy might be spent wholly in gainful 
work. The Puritan was not only acquisitive but resistful. He op- 
posed self-indulgence not only because it wasted time and energy but 
also because it was a conspicuous trait of the aristocracy he defied 
and of the lower classes he despised. Some of his family attitudes, 
for instance his attitudes to marriage and divorce, were radical be- 
cause of his defiance of the Roman Church and of the aristocracy that 
held the traditional attitudes.’ 


The English and Dutch Puritans came to the New World to get 
81 


82 RURAL HERITAGE 

away from classes and sects they defied, which controlled the gov- 
ernments of the Old World. They settled in largely self-governing 
communities the centre of which was the church, wherefore the New 
World offered a freedom they had never before known. These com- 
munities furnished exactly the conditions required for the full develop- 
ment of the type of character the attitudes of which had been slowly 
forming under the increasing economic freedom of the Old World. 

The settlers represented the men and women of strongest individual 
initiative of the Old World middle class. That is why they emigrated 
from the Old World. The Protestant Reformation signified the rise 
of a new economic class, a middle class made up of those who by their 
power of initiative had accumulated money in farming, industry, and 
trade. Where this class was not numerous, as in France, the Reforma- 
tion was suppressed. In all nations the families of initiative and self- 
restraint found themselves in conflict with the privileged classes and 
sought to escape the domination of these classes by emigrating to the 
New World. There they showed the same initiative that induced them 
to leave the Old World. Initiative characterized English and Dutch 
Puritans and French Huguenots, both men and women, not only in 
New York but even in the southern colonies where the climate was 
unfavourable to the exercise of initiative. ‘Tradition of South Caro- 
lina tells us that among the Huguenots ‘men and their wives worked 
together in felling trees, building houses, making fences, and grubbing 
up their grounds.’”’? In New York, the English and Dutch Puritan 
and the Huguenot families worked in the wilderness, clearing the 
land. Later, when the land had been made tillable and comfortable 
homes established, the children of these settlers as farmers exempli- 
fied the same initiative. However, except in rush seasons the women 
no longer worked in the fields. 

Settlers were of two main types. First, there was the man of rest- 
less energy and daring initiative but lacking in the patience required 
of a successful tiller of the soil. In pioneering he was a born leader. 
But, as the country developed, he was more apt to take to dealing in 
cattle than to tilling the soil and so was inclined to move on further 
west when the population had settled down to cultivation. For this 
reason the early farming population of New York was less of this 
type than of the second to be mentioned. This was the born tiller of 
the soil, the mighty, patient worker; also a man of mechanical in- 
genuity, and of kindly impulses, but not so impetuous in his generosity 
as the pioneer type. The second type of settler more largely than 


— 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 83 


the first determined the rural psychology of New York in the first 
period. Consequently we turn to a description of the economic atti- 
tudes of the second type. 

Several main conditions of rural life must be kept in mind in an 
analysis of economic attitudes. These conditions, as given in Chapter 
V, are the farmer’s exposure to uncertain weather; his dependence on 
uncertain weather for the fruition of his crops; his isolation; his in- 
dependence of people because of his ownership of land and other in- 
struments of production; the hard and confining nature of the farmer’s 
occupation. Attitudes due primarily to the weather have been de- 
scribed in preceding chapters. This chapter takes up economic atti- 
tudes which were due primarily to other conditions. While it is im- 
possible to point to any attitude that was the result entirely of one set 
of conditions, some attitudes evidence certain determining conditions 
and in describing the attitudes, these conditions will be mentioned. 

The early farmer was, above everything else, a mighty worker. 
Good judgment was an important asset but this did not enable a man 
to sit back and do nothing but direct the work of others. There was 
no place in rural life for men who could not work. Those whose work 
was not manual were esteemed according as they fitted in with the 
requirements of a working population. The doctor was “no good” 
unless he could “cure quick.” The blacksmith, under the eye of the 
waiting farmer, worked with surprising deftness and rapidity. The 
farmer worked alone or with his boys or a hired man and so was de- 
pendent on his own initiative. A man who lacked initiative failed as 
a farmer. The farmer had the habit of strengthening his initiative 
by “taking a stent” of work for the day and resolving to finish his 
stent before night or be a quitter. One of the outstanding characteris- 
tics of the successful farmer was the way he made everything bend 
to the accomplishment of his purpose. Everybody on the farm must 
fit in with his plans. The farmer has been termed self-centred because 
of this trait but the word means nothing unless we visualize his 
economic situation. On his planning, energy and example depended 
the success of the whole enterprise. Consequently the man who could 
so plan and use others as to get his work done in spite of bad weather 
and other adverse conditions was the fit farmer under those condi- 
tions. 

The farmer often went further in his own exertions and in instigat- 
ing exertion in others than was required at the time. The frequency 
of situations requiring extreme effort got him into the habit of requir- 


84. RURAL HERITAGE 


ing such effort when it was not really necessary. Many farmers 
seemed characteristically to require just a little more work of their 
boys than what they could comfortably do and this was one of the 
traits that then and still more later stirred resentment and defiance in 
sons and alienated them from the father. This attitude sometimes 
developed into the habit of wanting just a little more in trade than 
another was willing to give or of wanting a man to work for just a lit- 
tle lower wages than he was willing to work for. Thus the hard neces- 
sities of the physical environment developed the “grasping” farmer. 
When we consider that farmers were strenuous men, that their sons 
were unusually wilful because of the strong impulses stirred by the 
environment, we are not surprised at the serious disagreements that 
sometimes arose in families and between neighbours in the community. 

The attitude of individual initiative and enterprise was one of 
those which fundamentally shaped rural behaviour. In their economic 
activity farmers insisted on the right to plan and work out their plans 
as they chose regardless of anybody’s objections. In the political 
sphere they maintained that the government should not interfere except 
by necessary taxation and other customary restrictions; in the social 
sphere that a man might enjoy himself as he pleased, within the limits 
set by the customs of the community; and in the religous sphere that 
he might behave as he pleased, and do as he pleased on the Lord’s day, 
within the limits set by the customs of the community. The idea never 
prevailed that a man might do entirely as he pleased. As we have seen, 
the training given children was contrary to this idea. Children were 
taught a rigorous self-restraint and this attitude was pronounced in 
adults. Liberty to do as you please always meant within the limits 
set by the customs of the community. 

The early popular conception of liberty was, therefore, not an ab- 
stract idea but an orientation of certain social attitudes. Among these 
were the attitude of independence because of the free ownership of 
land and the attitude of enterprise and initiative in the cultivation of 
the land. These were not the sole basis of the idea of liberty, as will 
be seen in succeeding chapters. Other attitudes entered in and there 
was also the memory of the autocratic European governments which 
the settlers had left, and the fact that the conditions of the new world 
emphasized the importance of local as against centralized government. 
But, in spite of the fading memory of European oppression and the 
increase of centralized government, the independent ownership of land 
and individual initiative still foster some love of liberty among farm- 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 85 


ers, which comes out whenever the farmer thinks his traditional 
rights are being taken away. 

The early farmers realized that the basis of their liberty was the 
easy acquisition of, and the independent ownership of land. For this 
reason they were highly satisfied with their country and impatient with 
socialistic and other ideas that savoured of resistance to the existing 
government. This aversion to radicalism has continued to this day. 
Contrast this situation with that of the Russian peasants before the 
last revolution, when “a very large fraction of the 97,000,000 Russian 
peasants” had no land and felt ‘‘at once the ‘need of land’ and the im- 
possibility of purchasing or of renting it.’ ® Because they had no ac- 
cess to land they felt they had no liberty. On the contrary those of 
the peasants who were well-to-do and owned land were content with 
the existing political and social conditions and did not have the rev- 
olutionary tendencies of the landless peasants. These tendencies 
were therefore due not to political disabilities so essentially as to eco- 
nomic, that is, a landless condition that forced the mass of peasants 
into the wage-earning class. This condition developed doctrines that 
justified discontent with such a condition.®> In rural America, with its 
abundant land, discontent and justifying ideas did not arise. Hence 
the difference between Russian and American views as to private prop- 
erty. 

The American farmer owned his land and worked for the most part 
alone. These conditions begot an attitude of self-reliance. This at- 
titude was fostered as a cherished belief in every sphere of social 
behaviour. In the family the parents, ever mindful of the time when 
the children must leave the paternal roof and shift for themselves, 
insisted on a self-reliant performance of tasks. “Stand on your own 
footin’ ”’ was an injunction constantly heard. To shield a child from 
responsibility because he was not quite so robust as the others was 
considered equivalent to spoiling him. Self-reliance was seldom given 
secondary explanations, for the injunctions of parents were accepted 
as a matter of course. Occasionally, however, a parent enlarged on 
its importance. “If everybody was always relying on somebody else, 
who would get things done?’ A real leader was one who relied on 
himself. The schoolmaster continued this training and gave it a turn 
that appealed to the sentiments. In his talks to the children he quoted 
Emerson’s words in his essay on Self-Reliance: ‘Trust thyself: 
every heart vibrates to that iron string.” Nor was the turn which 
Emerson gives these words—the resignation he reads into the attitude 


86 RURAL HERITAGE 


—foreign to rural character, for the farmer strengthened his self- 
reliance by accepting his lot without complaint. The church constantly 
emphasized self-reliance. The minister glorified that trait in his 
character studies of the Old Testament prophets, and the songs that 
celebrated it were sung with a ring, for instance: 


“Dare to be a Daniel; 

Dare to stand alone; 

Dare to have a purpose firm and 
Dare to make it known.” 


The independent ownership of the farmer put him in a position to 
feel freedom in his work, and his enjoyment of free action was one 
of his chief enjoyments. He was free to plan as he pleased, and 
to “favour himself” in doing his work. To be sure, in a rush of work 
he felt compelled to exert himself to the utmost. But there was no 
boss compelling him. This freedom stimulated his self-reliance and 
made it not a merely dogged trait but an attitude conducive to self- 
realization. 

The farmer’s work included a diversity of occupations and required 
a good deal of technical knowledge. This was handed down orally 
from generation to generation. It was acquired by sons as they 
grew up on the farm and worked under the direction of their fathers. 
Artisans and professional men acquired much of their knowledge in 
the same way. A boy who did not want to “farm it” went to work 
as a carpenter’s apprentice or in the office of a lawyer or doctor. 
Naturally the tendency of a boy to follow the occupation of his father 
was much stronger than in these days of professional and agricultural 
schools. The tendency to adhere to custom had as one of its im- 
portant aspects this tendency to follow the occupation of the father. 

The farmer prided himself on his craft knowledge and skill. He 
knew how to handle a variety of farm tools, how to make or, at least, 
repair them, how to breed, raise, train, feed and slaughter animals and 
cut up and preserve meat, how to detect and treat diseases of animals, 
how to select seed, select the proper soil for different crops, prepare the 
soil, plant, cultivate, harvest and preserve the crops, how to set 
out and care for an orchard, manage an apiary and a sugar bush. 
Farming was more diversified than it is to-day. The development has 
been from the diversified farming of the first period to the specialized 
hop, wheat and other farming of the second period and then back to a 
more diversified farming in the third period. The farmer had less 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 87 


scientific knowledge than the farmers of to-day but his work required 
a good deal of knowledge and skill. He enjoyed the assurance of 
knowing his job with the knowledge that is gained in the school of ex- 
perience. Because it was thus gained it was largely a knowledge of 
the customary ways of doing things. But the diversity of the knowl- 
edge required and the farmer’s necessity of depending on himself, in 
his isolation, fostered ingenuity, which was another ground of as- 
surance. 

The essential economic method of the early days was direct attack 
upon nature. This developed persistence—keep digging, sawing, 
striking, shoving, prying, heaving until the obstacle gives way. Per- 
sistence was particularly in evidence when a man was working with 
other men. For it was stimulated by rivalry, which impels one to 
accomplish what he has set out to do because others are looking on. 
But it was characteristic also of the lone farmer in varying degrees 
according to his capacity. Conspicuous persistence was exceptional 
and marked a man off from his fellows. It was persistence which 
the father urged upon his son going out to “try his luck” in the great 
world: “Whatever you do, John, do it with all your might.” This 
trait was preached by schoolmaster and clergyman. It was the out- 
standing trait of the much lauded “self-made man.” In the farmer, 
as in men in other occupations, it often was carried to such an extreme 
as to weaken his efficiency. Influenced chiefly by this trait the farm- 
er’s main desire, when he began a piece of work, was to “get it done 
and off his mind.” This led him to “keep hammering away at one 
thing from daylight till dark” so that he came to the close of the 
day’s work completely tired out. In this he was inferior in efficiency 
to the farmer of good judgment who, by varying his work, achieved 
more with less effort. 

The persistence of the farmer developed a pronounced mental at- 
titude—the trait called doggedness. “’Tis dogged that does it’’ was 
a maxim incommon use. The dogged mind may be “slow” but when 
it finds something that must be mastered it masters it and “gets it for 
good.” 

Persistence implies concentration of effort. This was not charac- 
teristic of all farmers for all were not equally capable of it. A more 
widely prevalent trait was industriousness, which means constant work- 
ing, day in and day out, week in and week out, year after year. 
Neighbours measured each other’s worth according to conventional 
standards of industriousness, not industriousness shrewdly exercised, 


88 RURAL HERITAGE 


The farmer who failed to have his chores done and to be in the field by 
six in the morning, the housewife who failed to have her washing out 
before nine, were condemned even if, though arising later than their 
neighbours, they accomplished more by “using their wits’’ as well as 
their hands. Industriousness continues essential in rural behaviour. 
Young men educated in agricultural schools sometimes like to be- 
lieve that their education will make hard work unnecessary. Then 
as farmers they find their crops are smaller than those of an industrious 
and painstaking neighbour. Industriousness always will be one of the 
essential traits of the successful farmer. But mere industriousness, 
mere activity in the customary ways, with or without good judgment, 
is less emphasized than formerly. 

Industriousness involved endurance. The industrious person could 
not let his or her weariness interfere with work. All suffered hard- 
ships; none, well-to-do or poor, could escape them. The summer’s 
heat was oppressive to the haymakers, the winter’s cold benumbing to 
the woodsmen. The constant exertion through long hours made work, 
indoors and out, excessively wearisome. Especially was this true in 
times of special work when a “good spell of weather’ compelled 
the farmer to work day and night. So stolid endurance of weariness 
and hardship was characteristic of the early period. A slight indis- 
position was disregarded. Except in cases of serious illness or acci- 
dent the custom was to “laugh it off” and “go to work and forget it.” 

Stolidity was an attitude that pervaded rural behaviour. A man 
who “showed his feelings’ while listening to a sermon or to music, 
or even in bereavement, was disapproved of because he did not “con- 
trol his feelings better.” Thus repression, due primarily to the strenu- 
ous economic life, left its mark on behaviour generally. Though re- 
strained, emotions were powerful when they did break forth. 

Self-restraint caused an uncompromising attitude toward self- 
indulgence. This attitude of self-denial extended over the whole range 
of behaviour. There was a denial of impulses for “luxuries” in food 
and drink. The farmer lived well® but confined his diet as far as 
possible to what he produced and did not find a ready market for. 
One who “hankered after dainties” was ridiculed. So was the fellow 
who was at all particular in his dress. Farmer boys often took pride 
in showing by their dress that they “didn’t care how they looked.” 
Self-denial was particularly emphasized in connection with forbidden 
amusements. Amusements were forbidden because of their “evil tend- 
ency.” Dancing and theatre-going were associated with licentious- 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 89 
ness, card-playing and billiard and pool-playing with gambling, liquor- 
drinking with intoxication. These vices unfitted the farmer for that 
“sober, righteous and godly life’ that was necessary for a successful 
struggle with nature. But self-denial was carried further than this, 
and there was a tendency to think of any pleasure as somehow bad. 
It was contrary to the strenuous economic attitudes and the serious 
_ religious attitudes. There was danger that people by enjoying them- 
selves might get carried away, to the neglect of their work and their 
church. The church gave self-denial a variety of sanctions and pre- 
scribed certain customary expressions of it, which caused it to be 
carried to an extreme that the common sense of the individual, unin- 
fluenced, never would have permitted. For instance, extremely reli- 
gious people observed the custom called tithing, that is, gave one-tenth 
of their income to the church, and many of them thereby were forced 
to unreasonable self-denial. 

Because of the rigorous self-denial, there was a tendency to go 
to an extreme in the few satisfactions that were not socially tabooed. 
The farmer allowed no man to tell him what he should not eat, for 
the sake of his health, and this was one reason for the immoderate eat- 
ing that characterized the rural districts, with its train of bodily ills and 
the resulting vogue of patent medicines. Similarly he had his will in 
sex relations, as the large families show. Men felt that their lives 
were narrowed by hard work and they did not propose to scrimp them- 
selves on the few pleasures within their reach, though they did deny 
themselves expensive foods, 

Self-denial accentuated also the farmer’s grip on his property. The 
deep-seated attitude for private property in rural America cannot be 
understood without keeping in mind the sacrifice incurred in wringing 
wealth from the soil. So much has been said about the money made 
in land speculation that we sometimes forget the great mass of plodding 
farmers who never made any money in that way. They worked for 
what they got. As the child was dear to the mother because of what 
she had to endure to give it birth and bring it up, so was his property 
dear to the farmer because of the sacrifice he had to undergo in order 
to accumulate it. 

The farmer was secretive in this his main interest. He did not 
want anyone to know how much he was worth and sometimes did not 
even tell his family. He did not want people to know of his business 
dealings or how he had made his will. So when he needed advice he 
was accustomed to go to some man who was known to be “close- 


90 RURAL HERITAGE 


mouthed” and in whose judgment he had confidence, often the com- 
munity doctor. This absorption in property and secrecy in accumula- 
tion and bequest is characteristic of the farmer to the present day. 
An editor of a rural paper who has the confidence of thousands of 
farmers gets many letters each year asking his advice on a variety of 
subjects, particularly about property and its bequest. In spite of all 
the ‘‘reasons” that may be given for this secrecy there seems to have 
been something instinctive in it, something akin to the dislike of having 
mere acquaintances come in just when the family was eating. The 
secrecy urge was powerful and it continues to this day. 

The ultimate aim of the farmer was the accumulation of wealth and 
this required work and thrift. The work required to bring wealth 
from the soil made the farmer know the worth of a dollar. But this 
alone does not explain the attitude of thrift for the worker in factory 
and foundry toils as hard but is apt to be less thrifty. There are sev- 
eral reasons for the conspicuous thrift of the early farmer. First, 
what he produced was perishable and he developed the habit of care- 
fully saving his produce. From the time he sowed the seed he was 
cherishing a crop. An unusually wet or dry season caused him to 
make special efforts to “save the crop.” When it came to maturity 
he had to harvest and preserve it from rodents and the weather. 
Naturally this saving habit was sometimes carried to an extreme. As 
one old resident said, ‘Father told us to eat the partly rotten apples 
first and the result was that all winter we were eating rotten apples.” 
The farmer aimed to save what he had worked so hard to bring to 
maturity, and this attitude was transferred in various connections. 
The farmer was careful of his clothing, his tools, his animals and he 
saved his money. 

‘The second condition that emphasized thrift was the fact that the 
farmer was independent. Everything he saved in the course of work 
was his own. Wherefore, both he and his wife developed shrewdness 
in the saving of materials. ‘He would “tinker up” an old tool rather 
than buy a new one and she would “get along’ with her old kitchen 
utensils. They were saving also in the steps they took, and in plan- 
ning their work so as to accomplish most with least effort. In driv- 
ing the team the boy was taught to drive in a way to accomplish most 
with least effort. Thus the farmer often built up an organization 
of high efficiency. When the question arose of the expenditure of 
money for a new building or a new piece of furniture it was discussed 
by husband and wife over a long period and the money was spent in 


EE 


es, 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES gl 


a way to “go the farthest.” Thrift insinuated itself even into the pe- 
riod of the year when people are naturally most lavish, the Christmas 
season; the family emphasized the buying of useful presents or the 
giving of home-made presents. A too generous husband was up- 
braided by his wife for presenting her with an object of her heart’s 
desire, to which he replied that he got it on his own account; he did 
not want to have to hear constantly how much she wished she had it. 

On the other hand when, in the second period, the farmer came to 
produce more largely for the market, and came to live off his bank 
account the habit of thrift weakened. But it continued stronger 
among the rural population, generally speaking, than among those liv- 
ing in villages and cities. There wages come regularly at short in- 
tervals and this encourages spending on the expectation of a regular 
income. As contrasted with this, the income of the farmer is less 
certain and regular, and this has caused him to realize that he can- 
not spend all the money on hand. He must save and this necessity 
fosters the saving habit. There is another important difference be- 
tween farmers’ and factory workers’ social incentives to thrift. 
The latter live in villages and cities which are replete with stimuli to 
spend—the show windows, the social life on the street and in the 
social circles and organizations—while farmers are less subjected to 
these temptations. 

The essential tendency of human nature is to satisfy impulses 
thoughtlessly so that spending is a stronger tendency than saving. 
Spending means to satisfy impulses while saving means to restrain 
them. When restraint is compelled by the existing conditions there 
develops a social attitude of self-restraint which is strengthened by 
various sanctions. But it is apt to pass as soon as hard necessity no 
longer compels restraint. As we say, to spend is “more natural than 
to save.” Thought for the future is an intellectual process of which 
few people are capable to any extent, hence, under easy economic condi- 
tions, the natural tendency to spend becomes a social attitude. So 
the saving person who still reacts according to'the attitude of restraint 
of the past is apt to be ridiculed. The ridicule of thrift is due not only 
to the fact that it is unusual but also to the spendthrift’s sense of supe- 
riority over him whom necessity compels to save. Among the early 
farmers it was hard necessity that compelled restraint of impulses. 
Life was intolerable as a hired man and to escape this fate a man must 
acquire land and save in order to pay for it. He restrained impulses 
to spend for the sake of making those payments. He carefully saved 


92 RURAL HERITAGE 


his produce for the sake of selling the produce saved. So the habit 
of looking to the future was an everyday habit. It was not a matter 
altogether of foresight but a habit. This habit is seen in idioms used 
by the farmer. For instance, the habit inclined him to buy what was 
cheapest with little regard for quality and this preference for cheapness 
led to the use of the idiom “‘it’s cheaper” for any way of doing that 
seemed more economical than another, whether because it saved time 
or energy or money. The phrase was also still more broadly used to 
express a preference for a way of doing just because it was the custom- 
ary way. For instance, argue convincingly with an old farmer as to 
the time and energy which might be saved by doing things in a new way 
and he would reply “Yes, but I think the old way is cheaper.” He 
meant merely, “I’d rather stick to the old way.” 

Because of the prevailing thrifty attitude those who were inclined 
to spend somewhat more liberally than was customary hesitated to do 
so. People were relentlessly judged by their neighbours according to 
the customary standard of thrift. The question was not how much 
a man produced and enjoyed but how much he saved. The farmer 
who dared to buy a new carriage or a new piece of furniture was 
denounced as “getting high-toned’”’ or “living beyond his means.” 
One who was enterprising enough to invest now and then in a new 
piece of farm machinery was characterized as “a reckless fellow, 
filling his barns with old iron.” The approved farmer was the one 
who measured up to the customary standard of thrift. For this 
reason among others, prosperous farmers were very apt to continue 
living much as they had before prosperity came to them. 

The character of the early farmer was thus thoroughly organized 
for accumulation of wealth under the standards of the community. 
He had the industriousness to go forth each day, however extreme 
the heat or cold, to toil till night; the resolution to conquer every ob- 
stacle by ingenuity or persistence; the shrewdness to make every move 
count, not one false motion; the generosity to bear the brunt of the 
work and so incite others to do their best; self-control that, while 
directing with decision and occasionally inciting by sardonic humour, 
stopped short of impatient abuse and insolent bossing; and the self- 
denial to save as much as possible of what he produced. 

The method of direct attack on nature developed pugnacity in the 
farmer. Sometimes he berated an obstacle as if it were an animate 
thing. Much of his activity involved the use of farm animals and 
he was aggressive in his treatment of them. His attitude to his boys 





ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 93 


and his hired men was similarly rigorous. He spared neither himself 
nor anybody else. This was not due to a conscious money-making 
motive but to his interest in accomplishing his material purpose. Often 
it could be accomplished only by main force. Another reason for his 
pugnacious attitude was that he was often hampered by a bad season. 
A late spring worried him and caused him to rush into his work when 
the season did open, and he expected his men to rush too, though they 
had not the interest in so doing that he had. This trait of pugnacity 
characterized some farmers extremely while others scarcely showed it 
at all. Therefore, it is to be distinguished from that tendency of 
social relationship which made the father invariably the directing 
figure in his economic enterprise. But while making this distinction 
we must recognize that the degree in which the father was the direct- 
ing figure depended somewhat on his pugnacity. If he lacked this, if 
he was easy-going, easily discouraged, the members of the family were 
impatient with him. He was expected to make good his social position 
of authority by the requisite forcefulness. 

Pugnacity that made good generally recognized rights was socially 
approved, while merely impulsive pugnacity was not. The church held 
that “temper” and a tendency to fight were not in accord with the 
Christian spirit. And certain widely prevalent expressions of pugnac- 
ity were exceedingly sinful, for instance, swearing. Because for- 
bidden in the Bible this was regarded as a sin and the use of “by- 
words” was discouraged in children as tending toward swearing. 
Swearing satisfied pugnacity because it was an emphatic expression 
and also because, as a sin, it expressed the defiance of God and man 
that characterized the pugnacious sinner. The church opposed wilful 
pugnacity but supported assertion of rights. 

Because the economic life of the early days stimulated pugnacity, 
there was a good deal of conflict over ownership of property. How- 
ever, owing to the universally recognized institution of private property, 
which restricted the rights of each individual to the particular part of 
nature that constituted his private property, conflict between individ- 
uals for the same wealth was limited to wealth the ownership of 
which was not clear. Thus a tree growing on a boundary line raised 
a dispute as to its proper owner, while trees growing on one side or 
another of a mutually recognized boundary were appropriated without 
conflict. However, the lack of traditional boundary lines rendered 
cases of disputed ownership frequent, both in the ecclesiastical and 
the civil courts. Litigation was regarded by the community as a 


94 RURAL HERITAGE 


praiseworthy method of standing up for one’s rights. It was custom- 
ary to litigate all, even the most trivial disputes, and a man was called 
a coward if he yielded short of a justice’s decision. 

But courage ceased to be a virtue when it went further than de- 
fence of customary or legal rights. The man who was “eternally 
higgling with the ’sessor,” or who “flared up when his neighbour’s 
cows broke into his corn,” or who was “hard on” those in his debt, 
or who was habitually trying in ‘‘small ways” to get the best of his 
neighbours, was condemned as a “penny-pincher,” or as “grinding the 
face of the poor.”’ When the question was not one of resistance to 
a ruthless over-riding of customary or legal rights, it was the man 
who generously yielded the point, as if the small loss Fe hh meant 
nothing to him, who was socially approved. 

During the first decades of the nineteenth century the feeling that 
all were equally subservient to the necessities of a hard environment 
fostered a robust sense of equality and fellow feeling. Neighbours had 
an attitude of helpfulness towards one another. No one was so fa- 
voured by fortune as to feel above the common lot and the obligation 
of mutual aid. At the same time neighbours regarded each other’s 
increasing wealth with jealousy. As the attitude of helpfulness of 
the first decades weakened, jealousy increased. There were those who 
were not slow to imagine that, in one way or another, their neighbours 
were “taking advantage.” For instance, when, in the spring, the 
town road commissioner began repairing the highways, he was abused 
by farmers for not repairing their roads first—and this not on account 
of any immediate necessity, but because others were being served first. 
The reasonableness of repairing first those roads most used did not 
appeal to the jealous farmer. Rivalry in the struggle for wealth was, 
however, less important than the persistent attack of each individual 
upon nature in that little domain legally secured to him as his private 
property. 

Though the farmer worked alone, there were operations that re- 
quired co-operation, as logging and gathering in the harvest. The 
co-operation was naturally directed by the owner of the farm and there 
was apt to be a good deal of inward “cussing” if he was a “hog- 
headed” man. However, a farmer of unusually good judgment was 
apt to be deferred to, even in co-operation on another man’s farm. 
Such a man was very highly prized in the community and his direc- 
tions were “just naturally” followed. While the workers took the di- 
rections of the natural leader in a situation in which all were interested 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 95 


in achieving a desired result, they resisted mere “bossing.” Perhaps 
the main reason the big feeling man was disliked was that ‘“‘you can’t 
tell him anything.’ In a situation in which all were intent on ac- 
complishing a certain result, a man who tried to tell what he knew, in- 
stead of keeping his mouth shut and following the directions of the 
natural leader, was intensely disliked. He was disliked not only in 
the relations of the day’s work but also in the social life of the com- 
munity. His big-feeling attitude, his pompous greeting, his conceit 
in conversation were resented. Men’s interest was not in a man’s im- 
agination of or recollection of his own superiority but in proof of it 
through results achieved. These were apt to be in inverse ratio to 
the degree of conceit. So the mere fact of conceit was generally taken 
as proof that it was without any solid basis. “Give him enough 
rope and he’ll hang himself” was the general comment on that kind 
of man. 

The good neighbour was the one who had an attitude of helpful- 
ness. This attitude was customary in the neighbourhood. A man 
who had the esteem of his fellows must be not only an industrious 
worker but also a good neighbour. He must willingly help a neigh- 
bour in time of need. Thus, when two woodsmen were working in- 
dependently in adjoining wood-lots, each would go to the help of the 
other as he struggled to “skid” a log on to the bob-sled. “I'll help 
you” was, on occasion, the impulsive attitude of the farmer to his 
neighbour. Generosity was the initiatory force in co-operation. The 
neighbour to whom a farmer most readily went for assistance was 
not the “grouty’” neighbour but the cheery, generous one. So the 
generous man had a greater number in his debt than the ungenerous, 
which made him more ready to ask for help when he was in a “tight 
pinch.” Thus the generous man was less apt to over-exert and injure 
himself than the ungenerous. The fit man was, then, not the ex- 
tremely self-centred man but the one of generous impulses.* 

The generous person was apt to assume that others would be alike 
generous and to expect it of them. And there were people who acted 
generously in order to get a return. They were really selfish. So 
general was the expectation of a return that the warning given the 
recipient of bounty, ‘“‘you’ll have to pay for it,” became a common prov- 
erb. Thus when a spell of pleasant weather was enjoyed in March, 
on all sides was heard the warning, “We'll have to pay for this in 
April.”’ Wherefore, people generally accepted favours only with the 
understanding that they would expect to return them. People were 


96 RURAL HERITAGE 


averse to accepting favours from those to whom they did not want 
thus to be “put under obligation.” For often men “took advantage” 
of their relations as benefactors to ask “more than they had a right to.” 
Co-operation therefore meant more than a mere impulsive giving 
and receiving of aid. It was an habitual relation of mutual helpful- 
ness between neighbours. Co-operation involved a willingness to ac- 
commodate and a promise to return in kind. The farmer tended to be 
conscientious about returning in kind, even to the point of expecting 
his wife to give “the threshers’”’ as good a dinner as he had at their 
threshing. This sense of obligation tended to extend to the merely 
social affairs of neighbours. One who enjoyed a good dinner at a 
neighbour’s house felt obliged to give as good a dinner in return. 
One of the most common aspects of this ‘“‘you-help-me-and-I’ll-help- 
you” relation was borrowing and lending. Mowing machines and 
horse-rakes were not generally used until after the Civil War, and 
there was a good deal of borrowing of these and other farm imple- 
ments. As the inequality in wealth increased and the use of machinery 
was extended some farmers had more machinery than others, and the 
latter hesitated to borrow from the former because they could not re- 
turnin kind. This form of co-operation thus diminished. So did the 
borrowing and lending of goods for consumption. In the early days 
when a guest arrived unexpectedly, the farmer borrowed what was 
needed of a neighbour and paid in kind, while to-day canned goods are 
kept in the house for such an emergency. Until after the advent of 
matches in 1835 the custom of borrowing fire was universal, giving 
rise to the proverbial query, “Did you come for fire?” when the 
housewife, who had run into her neighbour’s house for a chat said 
she “must hurry back.” In other ways the families of the neighbour- 
hood were dependent on each other where now they are independent. 
The custom of mutual help was increased by the averseness of the 
independent farmer to taking pay for work, for thus he would put 
himself in the position of a hired man. Rather than to take pay for 
what he did he preferred to help his neighbour and then to feel free 
to ask help in return. Another reason for the importance of mutual 
helpfulness was the fact that neighbours often were kinsmen who 
naturally helped one another. Still another was the fact that the 
farmer was not accustomed to business relations. Also almost any 
farmer was certain to need a neighbour’s help, and it was a compara- 
tively simple matter to barter services. But in addition to all these 
conditions was the relation of goodwill between neighbours. It was 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 97 


an attitude that affected conduct in many ways. A man would not 
take pay from a neighbour for “garden truck,” or for a piece of 
spare rib. He felt hurt by a neighbour’s offering to pay for things 
given him or for help received. It was because offering to pay im- 
plied a failure to recognize his attitude of goodwill. But this relation 
of goodwill depended a good deal on economic equality. Consequently, 
as economic inequality increased, goodwill weakened. A poor man 
had not much to give and so shrank from assuming an attitude of 
neighbourly generosity to a well-to-do neighbour. One who did was 
apt to be suspected by his well-to-do neighbour of an intention to 
“come it over him.” 

In contrast with these friendly relations between neighbours, the 
farmer’s business relations beyond the immediate neighbourly circle 
bore the stamp of his self-centred relation to the soil. We have here 
a fine example of transmutation. For his attitude of persistent attack 
on nature and clever getting around obstacles which he could not over- 
come by the straightforward drive determined to a considerable degree 
his business relations. Persistent attack implied a “‘set idea,” and in 
his business relations he prided himself on sticking to his idea and 
making the other eventually “come round.” If a farmer had a horse 
or cow to sell and another wanted to buy, the former would state his 
price, after a long parley in which each had hesitated to venture a 
figure, and then they would separate and meet again and separate and 
so on, each persisting in trying to close the bargain at his own figure. 
Again, if a farmer wanted to trade one animal for another he would 
speak to the owner and, even if the latter was averse to trading, would 
persist in mentioning the trade whenever they met, perhaps for months 
until finally the trade was put through. This persistence of the 
farmer in adhering to his own idea is an attitude that pervaded every 
aspect of his behaviour. It was derived in the last analysis from his 
strenuous attack on physical nature. 

Another attitude that entered into business dealings was simi- 
lar to the farmer’s attitude as an assembler of labour. To under- 
stand how a piece of work is to be done, to plan how three men are 
to work together to accomplish most with least effort, to direct each 
in his movements in a way to realize this end, requires foresight and 
clever suggestion. Now, in a business deal the farmer used fore- 
sight and clever suggestion in the same way. He anticipated what 
the other man would think about the deal and what he would say 
and suggested what would induce him to think and do what he wanted 


98 RURAL HERITAGE 


him to think and do. He felt justified in taking advantage of an- 
other’s lack of knowledge, as long as he did not deliberately deceive the 
other. In fact he was rather proud of a transaction that displayed his 
superior knowledge, especially if the other’s lack of knowledge was 
of something every farmer was expected to know. 

Farmers did not, and do not to-day, think of themselves as com- 
peting with each other as sellers of grain or other products in the 
open market, as do merchants or manufacturers. To be sure the 
farmer realized that a large supply tends to lower the price and some 
farmers, when they saw the neighbours planting a good deal of a 
certain crop, were inclined to plant something else. But the farmer’s 
competition with other farmers was, and to a large extent still is, 
limited to deals with neighbours in which each, as above indicated, tries 
to put the deal through as he wants it. The farmer has a good deal 
of the same attitude in bargaining with his hired help. And the hired 
help develop a good deal of the same attitude to him. In some sections 
this has resulted in farm labourers, and particularly tenants, more or 
less systematically trying to get the best of the owners of the farms. 
Where this prevails the fair and generous owner is not apt to be 
treated differently from the grasping one. So inthe farmer’s relations 
with neighbours and with his labourers and tenants a good deal of the 
primitive individualism persists. 

In getting the best of a deal a farmer always had in mind his 
dependence on the good opinion of his neighbours. So deceit and 
underhanded dealings were exceptional. What he gained he wished 
to be clearly gained by his superior wit or power of impressing others 
with his ideas. That is, he wanted to get the best of a neighbour in 
a way that he could tell of with some satisfaction. He wanted his 
neighbour to feel, if later he came to think he had got the worst of a 
bargain, that “it was his own fault,” “and not go blabbing around the 
neighbourhood about how he had been imposed on.” 

The farmer had also in mind the possibility of a neighbour retaliat- 
ing in some way if he felt outrageously cheated. Because of the iso- 
lated life the tendency was to nurse a grievance. One vowed he would 
“get even” with another who had got the best of him in some under- 
handed way. So the farmer did not like to imagine that somebody 
was on his trail, or that somebody was talking him down and setting 
the neighbours against him. Nor was it merely fear that deterred 
from sharp practice. “You wouldn’t want to be treated that way 
yourself’” was the rebuke a high-minded farmer gave one who had 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 99 


turned a trick on him. The rule of the best farmers was to “do as 
you would be done by.” 

The business relations of the farmer were largely personal. There 
were few “writings.”” The farmer was averse to signing his name. 
There were stories of farmers who had lost their farms just by sign- 
ing their names. The personal nature of obligations sometimes had 
curious consequences. Instance the prevailing notion that a creditor’s 
death cancels a debt. For this reason “it is easier to get blood out of 
a stone than to collect from a dead man’s debtors.” The personal 
nature of the economic relations of the neighbourhood go a long way 
toward explaining the economic attitudes of those days; and the pass- 
ing of those attitudes is to be explained, among other ways, by the 
substitution of written agreements for the primitive oral understand- 
ings. 

The personal economic relations of the early neighbourhood fa- 
voured certain customs, among which was the custom of using the 
pledged word in many cases where a written contract is now required. 
Hence the attitude of personal honour—“Your word as good as your 
note.’ Economic relations were not possible unless a pledge was re- 
liable, as reliable as the signed agreement. The good citizen was not 
only the “son of toil,” but the “honest son of toil.”’, Honour was per- 
haps more used than honesty to imply fidelity to word, doing as 
one engaged to do. Honesty applied more narrowly to relations in- 
volving a transfer of wealth, in which it implied, for instance, not 
misrepresenting goods or ability to pay or not charging more than 
goods or services were worth. Truthfulness meant, not cleverly 
avoiding telling a falsehood while conveying the false impression de- 
sired, but “telling the truth just as it was.’ Sincerity meant “not 
‘pretending to be what you are not.” In the matter of fact relations of 
those early days and in a community where everybody knew everybody 
else, it was difficult successfully to pretend to be what one was not, to 
tell an untruth and not be found out, successfully to misrepresent 
goods, and to get out of paying one’s debts or otherwise to fail to do 
as agreed. Any of these deficiencies brought on the individual the dis- 
approval and contempt of the community. 

The above mentioned attitudes are of course not strictly economic 
attitudes. In the family children learned to keep their word, not to 
cheat at games, to tell the truth, and not to pretend to be what they 
were not. But these attitudes acquired an economic character as the 
boy grew to manhood and became more involved in the material side 


100 RURAL HERITAGE 


of life. Rural conditions strengthened these attitudes. They weak- 
ened when the economic relations of the farmer became more complex 
and when social rivalry increased social lying and hypocricy. 

The farmer liked the man who was “out and out” in his honour 
and honesty. That is, he wanted to be certain of these attitudes in 
the man with whom he was dealing. For this reason he liked to see a 
man estimate a debt with strict accuracy to the last cent and not say 
of a fraction of a dollar, “Let it go.” To this he would reply, “No, 
a square deal is a square deal,” and pay his debt to the last cent. 
Nor on the other hand did he like to have a man insist on the half 
cent due him and so take the half cent that did not belong to him. 
Farmers were keen in detecting each other’s attitudes. Attitudes 
which they liked, they wanted to see pronounced in another. 

Thus social attitudes were essential in the behaviour of the farmer. 
But the attitudes of the individual depended in part on the personal im- 
pulses that were temperamentally strong in him. Some men were by 
nature more generous than others, some more honest. However, 
social approval required that a man exemplify the prevailing degree of 
generosity and honesty. To get on with farmers one must understand 
the prevailing attitudes. No matter how exemplary a man’s behaviour 
from the point of view of an exalted ethical ideal, farmers would 
scarcely trust him unless his behaviour exemplified their attitudes and 
ways of doing. They would not understand him. His behaviour 
might be consistent with his ideal but would not seem rational to them 
from the point of view of their attitudes. 

The attitudes described in this chapter were those of a settled agri- 
cultural population. They implied a sense of permanence of their 
relations on the part of the farmers of a neighbourhood. Ifa farmer 
felt that his neighbour was there permanently he would be more anx- 
ious for his goodwill, more willing to help him, more careful, in his 
conversation, of his neighbour’s honour than if the neighbour was 
“here to-day, gone to-morrow.”’ When the sense of solidarity of the 
neighbourhood weakened, because of the increasing migration from the 
rural districts to the villages and cities and from one neighbourhood to 
another, the attitudes began to change. Take, for instance, the atti- 
tude of helpfulness. The reciprocity of helpfulness was at first un- 
determined as to the time given and the exertion required. That is, 
an act of help did not necessarily create an expectation of an exact 
return in time worked or kind of work but simply strengthened the 
habitual expectation of help when needed—whatever help a situation 


ECONOMIC ATTITUDES 101 


might require. But when the sense of solidarity began to weaken, the 
particular act of help became important as an economic service return 
of which might be expected, while it had little social value as a means 
of strengthening the habitual expectation. This change came when 
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood were less permanently settled and 
families were less thoroughly friendly. 

The farmer’s relation with neighbours thus began to have something 
of the aspect of a business relation. But it was in relations with 
dealers in farm produce that the business relation had its extreme de- 
velopment. In selling the tendency was to bargain up to the last and 
the farmer would not sell until he could feel he had the “top price.” 
He demanded an exorbitant price if he thought the dealer much 
wanted his product. His bargaining was not guided by any rational 
policy, for instance, to develop the reputation of being a reasonable man 
to deal with. He liked rather the reputation of being a hard man 
to deal with for that meant a man whom the dealer could not easily 
“handle.” The farmer realized that he was not shrewd and that he 
lacked the dealer’s knowledge of the market, and this made him sus- 
picious of the dealer. This antagonism between farmer and dealer 
seems inevitable and the natural solution is the co-operative marketing 
of farm produce. 

The attitudes of the individualistic farmer have proved to be con- 
trary not only to profitable marketing but also to profitable production. 
The purpose of the settler was to clear the land and exploit the virgin 
soil. Exploitation continued after the situation began to call for con- 
servation. The land was stripped of its trees and then of its fertility. 
Extensive instead of intensive farming continued even on into the third 
period. This was due to hidebound adherence to the customary ex- 
tensive farming and to lack of agricultural training. In recent years 
such training has been more sought than formerly by the more capable 
of the younger farmers. 

The economic attitudes of the farmer affected all classes in the 
community—business men, doctors, lawyers, politicians, clergymen as 
well as farmers. For instance, the clergyman had to be a worker as 
well as a preacher. As a preacher he had to show courage. His at- 
tack on sinners must be straight from the shoulder. And if he hap- 
pened to meet one of the sinners in a belligerent mood because of the 
pulpit bombardment and the sinner signified that only respect for the 
cloth restrained him from thrashing the parson, it did not injure the 
prestige of the parson at all to divest himself of his cloth and thrash 


102 RURAL HERITAGE 

the sinner. The politician back from the legislature in his address to 
his fellow townsmen on his arduous labours gave them a minimum of 
information but used the phraseology that aroused deep-seated atti- 
tudes and made him seem one with them in character and belief. The 
rural attitudes were the attitudes of the farmer, and the behaviour of 
men in other occupations was influenced and more or less determined 


by them. 


CHAPTER XII 
ATTITUDES OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL MEN 
THE MANUFACTURER 


ANUFACTURES developed in New York after the 
Revolution and especially during and after the War of 
1812. Factories were scattered throughout the rural dis- 
tricts. They made the wheat, logs and other products of the farm 
into flour, lumber and other goods; also made tools, kitchen utensils, 
tableware, brick and other articles of rural consumption. The build- 
ing of the canals and of roads from these into the interior made it 
possible to haul products to the canals and thence to ship them to the 
cities and to the seaport, New York.1' This system of transportation 
increased export trade and greatly increased the prosperity of the 
farmer, 

The manufacturer often had been a farmer and, perhaps, continued 
to manage his farm after he had come to give most of his time to his 
factory. He was the unusual farmer who was skilled in buying and 
selling and in the management of workmen. The early manufacturers 
were respected as men of superior ability and information. They 
were in constant contact with the farmers because they bought their 
raw materials directly from the farms. They had the farmer’s atti- 
tudes of honour, honesty and mutual help. In their shrewd dealings 
they had an eye to the approval of the farming community, and a 
miller was proud to say that the farmers of his section would not sell 
their wheat to anybody else. The farmers regarded the miller’s 
prosperity with unaffected goodwill, ascribed it to his superior ability, 
and supported him if he aspired to represent his constituency in the 
state legislature or in Congress. 

The small factories gradually disappeared from the rural districts. 
In recent years they have been replaced by canning factories, milk 
stations, apple evaporators and other factories for manufacturing 


farm produce, Some farmers hold stock in these factories. Occa- 
103 


104 RURAL HERITAGE 


sionally a farmer owns a factory. But they are owned largely by 
village or city dwellers. The social bond between manufacturer and 
farmer has disappeared. The interest of the factory lies in getting the 
farmers’ produce at the lowest price, and this purely business relation 
involves the conflict of interests that is inevitable under profit-seeking. 

However, the manufacturers of to-day sometimes have distinctly 
rural traits that distinguish them from other manufacturers. In one 
case a successful manufacturer in a large city is the son and grandson 
of successful rural manufacturers of the early days and his business 
relations are so conspicuously marked by the rural trait of generosity 
as to distinguish him from other manufacturers of that city. His 
theory of business differs from theirs as do his relations with his 
workmen. He is respected by other manufacturers because of his 
ability and success but his business ideas and his humane treatment of 
sick or unfortunate workmen are said to be “not good business.” The 
importance of this process of transmutation of attitudes as between the 
rural parts and the cities is just beginning to be realized. 


THE STOREKEEPER 


In the early days men were interested primarily in the clearing and 
cultivation of the land. Farmers had little wherewith to buy goods 
and bought only necessities. With agricultural prosperity came a 
growth of manufactures, which supplied the farmer with improved 
tools and utensils and some luxuries; and stores multiplied in the 
rural villages. The business of the storekeeper was unlike that of 
the farmer or manufacturer. The service he rendered was not that of 
producing but of distributing goods. He provided what the farmer 
needed and enabled him to get it at least cost, often on credit. But 
to the farmer, who looked at things from the point of view of the 
production of crops, the merchant did not create anything. The 
farmer could not appreciate the service he rendered though he ad- 
mitted the convenience of having a store in the neighbourhood, par- 
ticularly if the storekeeper gave credit liberally. In many rural 
neighbourhoods there was only one store. If there were two stores 
the farmer traded at the one that was “handiest,” provided no store- 
keeper was his kinsman or his particular friend. The last thing he 
thought of was to go from store to store to see where supplies could be 
bought most cheaply. Such conduct was too vacillating for the 





ATTITUDES OF BUSINESS MEN 105 


straightforward farmer. “When I see what I want I buy it, and 
don’t run off to another store to see if I can get it a cent cheaper.” 
To be sure, of two articles which would serve the purpose the 
“cheapest” was apt to be chosen. 

The storekeeper required traits somewhat different from those of 
the farmer. He was apt to be the son of a storekeeper or a youth 
who had taken to clerking because he did not like farming. There 
was a general feeling that rearing on a farm did not fit a boy for store- 
keeping, and when a farmer’s boy became a successful storekeeper 
the general verdict was that “he has done mighty well for a farmer 
boy.”’ Successful storekeeping required shrewdness in buying goods, 
care in keeping accounts, a smooth and pleasing address—attitudes 
that farming did not foster. However, the successful storekeeper in 
a rural community understood the rural attitudes and observed them 
in his behaviour. He was a man of honour, honesty, truthfulness, 
and of fellow-feeling in his relations with customers. His fellow- 
feeling sometimes involved him in difficulty for it inclined him 
to give credit liberally. At the same time he had the farmer’s in- 
dependence. “If a man doesn’t want to trade with me he doesn’t need 
elgg 

Two rival storekeepers let each other severely alone and tried to 
keep up an appearance of indifferent goodwill when they met. Each 
would show the other that he was not in the least disturbed by the 
other’s competition. Each conducted his business with the utmost 
independence so far as the other was concerned. Occasionally, how- 
ever, competition encouraged bitter feelings. As children in their play 
suddenly become in earnest and begin to fight, so occasionally two 
rival storekeepers became in earnest in their dislike and it was difficult 
to tell just how it came about.. Each had his own explanation. This 
tense relation might last for years and neither would have anything 
to do with the other, either in a business way or socially. 


TuHeE Doctor 


The farmer’s interest was in the creation of wealth. He enjoyed 
nothing so much as seeing his crops grow and come to maturity. 
The doctor’s interest was in his patients. He enjoyed nothing so 
much as seeing a patient improve. The leading purpose of the farmer 
involved material results, and the constant dwelling on a material 


106 RURAL HERITAGE 


result stimulated the acquisitive disposition. That of the doctor in- 
volved a non-material result, so the acquisitive disposition was not 
stimulated in the course of the practice of his profession. For this as 
well as other reasons the doctor was a poor collector. 

The doctor was sometimes also a farmer; or he owned a farm and 
let it to a tenant. But his main business was diagnosing illness and 
his main interest was in seeing his patients improve. Like the farmer 
he was a man of action, but unlike him his action was not concerned 
with production of material things. Neither the farmer nor the doctor 
was concerned primarily with money. The farmer was concerned 
with the process of work and its result in crops; the doctor, in so far 
as he gave any thought to the material side of his business, was con- 
cerned with making a living, not with making money. Nothing in 
the young doctor of to-day so repels the doctor who is animated by 
the old-time attitudes as the young doctor’s emphasis or the pecuniary 
side of his vocation. The change is due to the influence of village 
and city life, with its wealthy business men and its emphasis on 
material prosperity. 

The old rural doctor might have had a much larger income if he had 
been as interested in collecting his pay as he was in doctoring the 
sick. Among many families it was customary to pay the doctor once 
a year. Other families “were always going to pay but never got to 
it.’ The farmer was more reluctant to pay this debt than some others. 
Because he was intent on the production of material things he was 
unable to appreciate the worth of services. And because the service, 
though invaluable, was exceptional, the farmer was not in the habit of 
recognizing it. Being a creature of habit and not of reflection, or 
even of recollection, particularly if the thing to be recollected was the 
unpleasant experience of illness, he was lax in paying his doctor’s bill. 
Another illness in the family would remind him of his unpaid bill, and 
the service at the moment would seem invaluable and he would mention 
his intention to pay “after harvest.’ Then other more pressing 
demands would dim the recollection of this one. The doctor under- 
stood the farmer ; he knew he was all right “at heart’ and that he (the 
doctor) was the most deeply regarded man in the community. The 
tendency in the early days was to have a family physician and swear 
by him. This was one manifestation of the tendency to loyalty which 
we see also in family, political and religious behaviour. The doctor 
was relied on as a friend in need and also as counsellor in business 
matters, such as taking out insurance and investing money. The 


ATTITUDES OF BUSINESS MEN 107 


doctor was, thus, a unique figure in the community. Materially the 
most ill-used man, he was the most esteemed as a friend in need. 
When he died he had “the biggest funeral in the town in years” and 
the sorrow was heart-felt. 

The doctor had many of the attitudes of the farmer. He was 
primarily a man of action. His practice extended over a wide terri- 
tory, and he could not give directions by telephone, as to-day. His 
active life left no time for study even if he had the inclination. His 
knowledge was limited, remedies were few and scientific interest lack- 
ing. In the new country doctors were scarce and the state could not 
be too particular as to their qualifications. For a long time there was 
no state supervision of medical practice. The diploma from a medical 
school served as a doctor’s license. The course in the schools was 
one of two terms of six months’ duration each. The school was 
dependent on students’ fees so that it made the course easy in order 
to get students. This lack of thorough education was against progress 
in medicine. So the doctor, like the farmer, was a man of action and 
of pronounced adherence to custom. 

Like the farmer, he was also independent. He was not called ex- 
cept in cases of serious illness. If he was attached to the family he 
was a good nurse. But usually his treatment was rough and ready. 
He adopted the farmer’s rough and ready attitude. He gave his 
directions brusquely. Sometimes one sees to-day a doctor of this 
old type. He is brusque, wastes no words, nevér calls twice when 
once is enough. His sole interest is in his case. He is distinct from 
the more polite, sophisticated product of later conditions. Another 
rural attitude of the doctor was that of making light of illness. He 
understood the prevailing attitude to endure pain rather than to try to 
escape it. He could rely on that attitude. This reliance was con- 
spicuous in his practice of dentistry. Many rural communities had 
no dentist. The doctor pulled the teeth. The patient sat in an 
ordinary arm chair and was told to take a tight grip on the arms and 
hold on. Then the doctor gripped the tooth with his forceps, braced 
one foot against the seat of the chair, and placed his free hand against 
the patient’s forehead. In spite of this the chair was sometimes pulled 
over the floor a bit before the tooth was extracted, for the farmer never 
lost his grip on the chair nor the doctor his grip on the tooth. At 
the close of one of these operations, when the patient had been hauled 
part way across the room, he is said to have remarked, as he took out 
his wallet, “Well, doctor, how much for the ride?” 


108 RURAL HERITAGE 


“Oh, two shillings, I guess, for a short haul.” 

The doctor had many other attitudes of the farmer. He was a 
man of honour, courage and generosity. He braved any storm to 
reach a family in need. The fact that the family owed him money 
did not deter him. 

The farmer felt the mysterious forces of nature co-operating with 
him. To the doctor, also, there was mystery in the response of the 
human body to his remedies. The superstition as to the ability of the 
seventh son to heal by the laying on of hands was widespread and a 
seventh son was much in demand. This encouraged seventh sons to 
become doctors. The bone-setter of extraordinary skill was regarded 
as having some supernatural power. And, so regarded, he came to 
think so himself. 

A doctor in prescribing remedies had to consider the attitudes of 
the farmer. For instance, a young doctor who did not know these 
attitudes advised a farmer who was troubled with indigestion to “rest 
a little after eating.” To the farmer who was habitually at his work 
again almost before the clatter of knives and forks had ceased this 
was a ridiculous proposition. It was passed over the town that “All 
Dr. E does is to tell you to rest after eating.”’ Dr. E did 
not get much practice in that community. Again, the farmer was a 
man who wanted his money’s worth, and he expected the doctor to give 
medicine. So, when he thought no medicine was necessary, the doctor 
gave sugar pills or poured a little coloured solution into a glass of 
water. 

My purpose, in showing the effect of rural attitudes on the doctor’s 
behaviour, is to point out that the professional man is not by his so- 
called “professional spirit” made impervious to the influence of the 
community. The rural doctor was not conscious of this influence any 
more than the city physician of to-day is conscious of it. But, in 
both city and country, outside influences affect professional behaviour. 








THe LAWYER 


The lawyer followed the settler to adjust disputes over titles to land 
and over boundary lines, and to try cases of assault and slander 
that arose among a pugnacious population. These rural lawyers were 
more learned in a knowledge of the human nature with which they had 
to deal than in the law. For, owing to the tendency of the legal pro- 


ATTITUDES OF BUSINESS MEN 109 


fession to limit the number of apprentices who might study law 
in the offices of lawyers and to impose a long apprenticeship,® there 
developed, in addition to the attorneys-at-law who had served their 
apprenticeship and had been regularly admitted to practice, a class of 
attorneys-in-fact, that is, lawyers who had not been admitted to 
practice but had read a little law and had begun to practice. Of 
course they could practice only in the lower courts. This class of 
lawyers was found throughout the rural districts. Their limited 
knowledge of the law did not jeopardize their practice, for the success- 
ful practitioner was one who understood not only the simple law in- 
volved but also the attitudes of the farmer; for most cases were tried 
before a jury of farmers. Furthermore, the farmers often chose one 
of their own number as town justice. The successful rural lawyer 
was one who grasped the justice of a case as it would appear to the 
typical farmer, and who was clever in finding a rule of law under 
which he could get justice. In his cogitations what he considered 
was the customary ways in which the people carried on their occupa- 
tions and incurred their obligations; what expectations could reason- 
ably be raised in a particular case in view of the customary ways of 
doing things; what was the customary meaning of the language em- 
ployed by one man in dealing with another; what were the customary 
motives in dealings. His interest was in deciding a case justly in 
accordance with law and, particularly, with custom. Farmers were 
generally opposed to new laws. “Enforce what laws we have” was a 
maxim that was in accord with the farmer’s tendency to action. The 
lawyers, likewise, were opposed to legislation, not only because of their 
predilection for the common law, as opposed to statutes, but also 
because they were influenced by the farmer’s attitude against new laws. 
Their legal setness was accentuated by their reaction against the 
impulsiveness of people who were intent on satisfying their impulses 
customary to the law. To the lawyer the law was something to hold 
over people and the thing to do was not to talk of changing it but to 
enforce it as it stood. 

We have seen that the manufacturer and storekeeper, the doctor 
and lawyer all had attitudes that characterized the farmers among 
whom they lived. They acquired these attitudes as children and 
developed them in the course of their business and social relations 
with the farmers. 'The result was less sense of antagonism between 
the different classes in the rural districts than in the city. The people 


110 RURAL HERITAGE 

of the rural community knew one another more intimately than in the 
city. Also, in the city men of different occupations were thrown more 
exclusively with one another. Their characters were more specialized 
along occupational lines. The result was somewhat less sympathy be- 
tween different economic groups than in the country. 


CHAPTER XIII 
ATTITUDES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 


HE economic equality of the early neighbourhood accentu- 
ated the attitude of social equality and goodwill. The good- 
will obtained among all families which were economically 
independent. There was a feeling of some contempt for families that 
occasionally needed aid and of a decided aversion for the chronically 
dependent. Some farmers, also, had little respect for the merely in- 
dustrious man who, because of poor judgment, never got ahead. But, 
fundamentally, there were only two social classes, the independent 
and the dependent. It was a disgrace to have to accept private charity, 
and still worse to “come on the town.” In injunctions to children to 
be more industrious one of the phrases quite generally used was, “If 
you don’t get down to work you'll land in the poorhouse.” This 
abhorrence of dependence was an incentive to industriousness and 
those who were unavoidably poor tried to conceal their need. 

While all independent families were not regarded as equals, all who 
were independent were apt to be workers and, as such, were socially 
esteemed. Not wealth but wealth-producing qualities of character 
were the measure of one’s stature as a man before the community. 
The stories which old residents used to tell with greatest satisfaction 
were stories of feats of work—the number of acres of oats cradled 
in a day, the number of cords of wood chopped, of hop poles set. A 
farmer did not boast of a feat for his fellows disliked boasting. But 
he casually mentioned it in a way to “get credit’ for it. Not all 
mighty workers were successful farmers. Farming required judg- 
ment as well as strength and skill. But all successful farmers were 
workers. 

There were various attitudes toward the successful. There were 
men who were “too jealous’ to admit the success of a neighbour. On 
the other hand there were men who recognized success with unaffected 
generosity because it was won by work. In some communities this 
was the prevailing attitude. Let one disparage the success of an 


unpopular fellow townsmen and he would meet with the short re- 
III 


112 RURAL HERITAGE 


joinder: ‘He’s done well; give him his just deserts.” Provided a 
man was a worker, the fact of superior wealth did not alienate him 
from his neighbours. Thus a poor farmer said of a well-to-do 
neighbour: ‘You bet that fellow’s a worker and not stuck up either 
—just as common as you or I.’’ And the well-to-do farmer had the 
same fellow-feeling toward his poorer neighbour. There was, how- 
ever, a feeling of superiority over a hired man on the part of the 
independent farmer, even though the hired man was-a mighty worker. 
This sense of superiority did not take the form of aloofness but the 
independent farmer would not himself work for another for wages. 
As we have seen he preferred to help the other and then have the 
other help him. The attitude toward the hired man was merely that 
he worked for another and was not independent. However, the 
farmer had a fellow-feeling for his hired man not seen later. Said 
an old farmer: “I have our hired man eat with us and sit with us 
in the sitting room in the evening. We never thought of doing dif- 
ferently in the old days. If a man is good enough to work for me 
he is good enough to eat with me.” 

This sense of all being subject to the common lot was, next to the 
sense of individual liberty, the most cherished aspect of early 
rural life. It was not a sense of personal equality, but that no 
one in virtue merely of accident of birth was socially superior 
to another. Each felt that all had to work and to endure the hard- 
ships of the common lot. What counted were a man’s qualities as a 
worker, his initiative, persistence, endurance, ingenuity. The per- 
sonally superior man was admired and acknowledged to be superior. 
Men believed in social, not personal equality. This sense of social 
equality and personal inequality continued until well on into the 
second period. It showed itself in a disregard of whatever social 
inequalities might exist and a respect for men and women for what 
they were personally. People were more frank and at ease with one 
another regardless of their social station than in a later period. There 
was, thus, a prevailing good humour and much unconscious, unculti- 
vated politeness. 

Along with this fellow-feeling between workers there was also an 
attitude contrary to it, more marked in some communities than in others 
but everywhere in evidence. And it became much more pronounced in 
the second period. It was an attitude of contempt for the man who 
was a worker but not a very successful farmer. At first the work was 
largely that of clearing the land and this was the time when mere 


a 


ATTITUDES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 113 


brawn counted for most, and when the equality of all workers was 
most strongly felt. When the land had been cleared it was possible 
to produce and accumulate. The activity of the neighbourhood more 
and more assumed the aspect of a hard rivalry in accumulation. Suc- 
cess now required good judgment as well as strength and skill. The 
goal was to own a farm and to have it entirely paid for. Such 
farmers were called “comfortable farmers” because their farms were 
paid for and they could take some comfort. These in a way constituted 
a class that was looked up to. A comfortable farmer was apt to have 
a little money to lend instead of borrowing from somebody else. On 
the other hand, the farmer who did not accumulate was contemned 
as a ne’er do well, a good worker, perhaps, but lacking in judgment. 
He might be the hardest and most patient of workers but he was 
contemned just the same. If he did not keep his debts paid this was 
an added reason for saying mean things about him. Successful men 
condemned a farmer who was inclined to be easy with an unsuccessful 
man in his debt. The successful took pride in their success and often 
seemed to derive a certain satisfaction in contemning the unsuccessful. 
And this without any generous allowances for a man’s having a sick 
wife or other misfortune. This attitude became moré pronounced in 
the second period. It rested on the belief that a farmer’s prosperity 
depends entirely on himself—on his own exertions. This belief has 
so obsessed the farmer that he has with great reluctance been brought 
to admit that outside circumstances may affect the farmer’s prosperity, 
for instance, low prices of farm products, monopoly resulting in high 
priced farm machinery, or a corrupt government resulting in excessive 
taxes. 

We have, then, the two attitudes, the one that a man must be a 
worker, the other that he must be a successful farmer to have the 
entire respect of the community. As time went on the emphasis on 
success, as compared with mere industry, increased. But there still 
lingered the respect for the mere worker. Although, because of sick- 
ness or other misfortune, he might need help to tide him over a hard 
winter, yet, if he was industrious, his poverty would be excused on the 
ground that “he tries hard enough.” The conspicuously successful 
might sneer at the poor, hard-working man but there was always the 
tendency of those who were less successful to sympathize with the 
unfortunate, because their own success was only moderate; from the 
point of view of social superiority and prestige they had failed as 
well as their poorer brethren. 


114 RURAL HERITAGE 


Only the successful ever claimed that a man’s success was in propor- 
tion to his deserts. “‘As a matter of fact it might be and it might not” 
was the general opinion. A man’s success might be due to mere luck. 
“Once a man gets a start and money makes money.” So there de- 
veloped a feeling that the successful “ought to share” with the poor 
when the poor were in need. As success was apt to be due partly to 
good luck and partly to the fact that money makes money, so failure 
was apt to be due partly to bad luck and to lack of the necessary 
capital. This attitude that the successful “ought to share’ prompted 
philanthropic people to approach the moneyed men of the community 
on behalf of the poor. Men who did not respond were put down as 
stingy and there was a great deal of giving in order to avoid this 
reputation. These attitudes are more pronounced in American than 
in European nations, because of our democratic rural traditions, which 
is one reason for the American faith in mere philanthropy,’ as opposed 
to progress by the organization of workmen for self-help through 
economic and political action. 

The socially esteemed class in the early community was the workers ; 
the contemned class included those who were intermittently industrious 
or entirely shiftless, who failed to keep their buildings and fences in 
repair, to have their work done in season and to support their families 
well. However, no matter how worthless a man might be, he and 
his family were not allowed to starve. The occasional tramp was 
fed and allowed to sleep in the barn. In the case of an unknown 
tramp found dead in a barn, there was widespread expression of regret 
that “someone did not know about it in time.”” There was no opera- 
tion of the law of natural selection in the strict sense of the term, even 
in this rigorous period of rural development, for there was no perish- 
ing of the unfit from starvation. But the heavy work impaired the 
health of the weaker, and the suppression of normal impulses under 
the requirement of extreme self-denial was not conducive to the 
soundest mental health. The essential social process was not a 
struggle for existence but a struggle to live according to the customary 
standard of the community. This involved providing for the family, 
paying for the place, laying by a little for a rainy day, making a 
modest contribution to the church, and providing suitable entertain- 
ment whenever friends happened to drop in. Living respectably in- 
cluded, also, living according to the moral ideas of the community. 
These were not merely an inheritance from the past but, for the most 
part, were vitally related to the farmer’s economic life. Essential in 


ATTITUDES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 115 


that was action, unflagging industry, and abhorrence of laziness. 
Note the habitual shamefacedness of the loafer and the apologetic atti- 
tude of the man who, because he was old, or was recovering from an 
illness, was permanently or temporarily idle. Industry was the rule, 
it was “‘in the air,” and the man who was not temperamentally active 
yielded to the social suggestion without knowing it and thus added his 
influence to the general contempt for laziness. In the villages, on 
the other hand, there developed among those who did not have to work 
with their hands a contempt for those who did. Because of this the 
young farmer did not like to come to town and peddle his produce in 
his old clothes. Those in the villages who felt above manual work 
seized opportunities to display their aboveness. For instance, a house- 
holder, instead of mowing his little lawn after business hours, would 
hire it done and stand idly by to “boss the job.” When the working 
virtues—industriousness, persistence, endurance, thrift—ceased to be 
socially esteemed, those virtues less directly associated with the eco- 
nomic life also weakened—self-restraint, honour, honesty, sincerity, 
generosity. 

Not only the virtues but also the pleasures of the farmer were 
largely an outgrowth of his active life. This gave him a vigorous 
appetite. He was proud of his appetite as one of his strong points, 
and young farmers when they came together on festive occasions 
would test their capacity, as on General Training Day, when there 
were contests as to who could eat the most roast pig. Aside from 
eating the farmer did not greatly emphasize material comforts. His 
rough garments, unpretentious dwelling, unadorned table and rude ve- 
hicles gave an observer used to refinement in material surroundings 
an impression of crudeness but the farmer was satisfied. As his pe- 
cuniary condition improved, his wife added new furniture, carpets and 
dishes. He bought a new carriage and his daughters had music les- 
sons. However, it was not in the newly furnished parlour but in 
the old-fashioned sitting room that the farmer took solid comfort. 

Outdoor sports had a prominent place in the pleasures of the neigh- 
bourhood. Wherever boys or men assembled there were displays 
of physical prowess. Rough games and fights during recess at school, 
contests at “pulling stick’? between neighbourhoods on town-meeting 
day, show a pugnacious and physically exuberant population. The 
rivalry between sturdy youths as to whom could husk the most corn 
or set the most hop poles, the wrestling matches in the barn on rainy 
days, the rude horseplay as one neighbour passed another’s house on 


116 RURAL HERITAGE 


the country road, these frequent trials of strength and of rough wit 
resulted in an unfeigned admiration for the powerful man. With this 
was associated a love of fair play which might show which really was 
the powerful man. 

In these rough pleasures the whole neighbourhood frequently joined. 
There were raisings, bees and socials. On all these occasions there 
was a hearty meal, before and after which the young folks played 
blind man’s buff, while the old folks visited, compared notes about 
daily work, cracked jokes, propounded conundrums or exchanged local 
gossip. Another popular pleasure was the singing school which the 
neighbourhood held weekly during the winter months in its school- 
house, or united with other neighbourhoods in holding in the school- 
houses of each in turn. Singing schools may not be regarded as 
pleasures of physical activity unless it is recollected that those of the 
early days were more or less refined contests as to which could make 
the loudest noise. 

Once or twice a year the entire community held a “jollification.” 
The greatest of these festive occasions was General Training Day. 
On this day, which came in September, every able-bodied man between 
the ages of fifteen and forty-five was required by law to take part in 
military exercises. There was a parade, a sham battle, roast pig at 
the taverns and a masquerade ball in the evening. Except for these 
annual festivals and for the assembling of the community at church on 
Sunday, association for pleasure was limited to the neighbourhood. 
There was, however, more or less constant intercourse between neigh- 
bourhoods. In addition to the visiting between families there were 
certain community characters who carried “the news” from neighbour- 
hood to, neighbourhood. In our typical community these included. 
“Old Buckley,”’ the shoemaker, who lived in a log cabin and carried his 
bench from house to house and made shoes for all the family; Vine 
Bailey, the old clock-mender, who “would sit down and talk for an 
hour, then take a pinch of snuff and tinker away on the clock, talk- 
ing all the time”; Mrs. , the dressmaker, who was in great demand 
at all times, particularly in preparations for weddings and funerals. 
These community characters conveyed the gossip from one neighbour- 
hood to another. However, association between neighbourhoods was 
less intimate than was association between neighbours. The latter 
was entirely informal; the “women folks” visited back and forth 
whenever there was a lull in the morning’s work and they had some 
spicy gossip to relate; and longer calls were frequent and made with- 





ATTITUDES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE Fiz 


out special invitation. As one old resident said, ‘I used to take the 
baby in one arm and some knitting in the other and go over to the 
neighbour’s and stay all the afternoon and to supper. We went back 
and forth whenever we felt like it without waiting to be asked.”’ The 
social life of the men was equally informal. The farmers congregated 
at the tavern or store in the evening and indulged in arguments, jokes 
and horseplay. 

This social pleasure of the early period differed from that which 
later centred in the village in this, that the former was conspicuously 
that of an active people while the latter implied an inactive, sophisti- 
cated type. In the first period the pleasures were more largely bodily 
pleasures—the hearty laugh, the hearty meal, the rustic dance in 
which the boy “did not hold the girl at arm’s length and both went into 
it for dear life so that the shouting and clatter drowned out the 
music.” In the second period, the jovial farmer was found to be “‘too 
noisy” on festive occasions—“haw-hawing so that you could hear him 
away out into the street.” His jokes were declared too coarse, his 
stories and homely wit too slow. So the laugh was modulated and 
not a spontaneous guffaw, the tables were less “loaded down” and 
more tastefully decorated, the dancers were more artistic in dress and 
step than exuberant in movement. 

There was in this early period a pronounced feeling of difference 
between the country and the village. The life of the farmer was a life 
of action, as compared with the sedentary occupations of the 
village. His habits of action unfitted him for village life and most 
farmers were inclined to keep out of the village and to continue to 
live on the farm to the last. The farmer judged villagers from the 
point of view of his own attitudes which were so different from those 
of village people that misunderstanding was inevitable. 

The difference between village and country in the matter of action 
goes to explain other differences also. Village people were more given 
to gossip than those on the farms because the farmer’s family had less 
time for gossip. The rural telephone has increased gossiping on the 
farm but the village probably holds the record. If a farmer and his 
wife move to town, however, they easily become infected with this 
tendency. The farmer now spends his time sitting around the house 
“waiting for his funeral,” and one cannot blame him for preferring the 
nail keg and the gossip of the country store. And the wife, thus de- 
prived of his solemn company, is quite apt to spend a good deal of 
time at a neighbour’s on a similar errand. The sociable attitude 


118 RURAL HERITAGE 


prompts people to “make talk” and the more interesting the talk the 
more successful the social hour. Hence the main tendency of gossip 
—to say something interesting without very strict regard to its ac- 
curacy. People find this pleasure in reading newspapers, wherefore 
the papers are not held by their readers to a very high standard of 
accuracy. Because of the isolation of the rural community there were 
few things to talk about and this caused a tendency to exaggeration 
in gossip. Sickness or trouble in a family was ‘“‘made out worse than 
it was.” At the same time, in some communities at least, there were 
certain things that people did not gossip about. If a person had once 
done something “awful,” either recently or in the dim past, it would 
be generally known that he or she had done so but nobody would 
tell an inquirer what had been done. Extreme wrongdoing was 
“wicked” and the awfulness of sin caused people to fear to talk of 
the worst sins. Also there was a strong bond between neighbours 
which caused a neighbour to protect another’s reputation. On the 
other hand family feuds occasionally gave gossip a tendency to be 
bitter and relentless and to stop at no scandal. Always, however, 
along with the enjoyment of scandal there was a contempt for 
the scandal monger. Hence the apologetic air, even of the worst 
gossiper. 

The small village never had much attraction for enterprising boys 
and girls reared on the farm. Their goal was the city. Even in this 
early period, the young people were beginning to get restive and many 
of them were eager to get off the farm and go to the city. The lure 
of the city as the place to try one’s fortune, the rumoured pleasures 
and distractions of the city and the ease with which people made a 
living there as compared with the hard life on the farm were the 
main inducements. Then too the idea became widespread that to suc- 
ceed in the city was a greater achievement than merely success as a 
farmer. Furthermore, many people were not suited to country life. 
A person must feel quite self-sufficient physically, mentally and mo- 
rally, not to be lonely there. His domestic and neighbourly relations 
must be fairly happy. Young people especially were apt to feel the 
family and neighbourhood restraint and to long for the reputed free- 
dom of the city. Migration of young people to the cities became 
noticeable in the ’forties and increased after the Civil War. The 
young were thus more or less alienated from their former homes. The 
old folks back home were likely to be more or less neglected. In the 
fifties this subject received magazine attention. The young man in the 


ATTITUDES OF SOCIAL INTERCOURSE 119 


city was reluctant to visit his folks in the country ; it was too dull there ; 
they wanted him to stay too long; he did not go as often as he could.” 

The isolation and loneliness of rural life caused the people to make 
the most of the means of relaxation they had. As they had to rely on 
themselves in their work so did they in their relaxation. This situa- 
tion led to the cultivation of humour and to a high valuation of the 
humorous man. It led also to the cultivation of kindliness and to 
an unfeigned esteem of kindly people. However, capacity for the cul- 
tivation of these social qualities depended on the character of the in- 
dividual. Some farmers had a pronounced tendency toward optimism 
—in the uncertainty of the seasons they always hoped for the best— 
and this attitude, in their social relations, expressed itself in a tendency 
to think well and to expect well of others. Even toward strangers 
this type of farmer was ordinarily interested and hospitable. Other 
farmers had a pronounced tendency toward pessimism both in their 
economic and their social life. Needless to say it was the optimistic 
and cheery farmer who was socially esteemed and this social esteem 
was, in turn, a strong incentive to the cultivation of optimism and 
cheeriness. The result was that the social pleasure of the early time 
was pervaded by a fellow-feeling and goodwill and a sense of humour 
not found later. This was accentuated by the absence of the attitude 
of contemptuous exclusiveness that comes with economic inequality. 
This developed particularly in the villages, where the increasing in- 
equality of a later period resulted in subservience to the wealthy, which 
was manifested particularly at social functions. This gave functions 
a decorous atmosphere because of the anxiety to accord the social 
leaders the deference due them in virtue of their assured social posi- 
tion. But in the early days it did not seem to occur to anyone who 
was “better off” than a neighbour that this gave him or her an assured 
social position. Even if some families were not obliged to work so 
hard as others, yet all were liable to loss in bad seasons, and, more 
important still, all were liable to suffering through accident, sickness 
and bereavement. In case of sickness or accident the well-to-do were 
as dependent on the poor as were the poor on the well-to-do. No 
trained nurse could be secured by the next train; the proferred assist- 
ance of the poor man’s wife was gratefully accepted and she watched 
by the bedside of her well-to-do neighbour’s child while the tired mother 
gained some rest. 

Not only in sickness and bereavement but also in the ups and downs 
of everyday life the help and sympathy of neighbours was welcome, 


120 RURAL HERITAGE 


The monotony of life was most pleasantly broken by dropping in for 
a chat with a neighbour and by having the neighbours drop in. Hence 
the solicitude in case of a change of neighbours as to whether the new 
neighbours would be “good people,” that is, congenial in the intimate 
and many-sided neighbourly relations. The favourites in those days 
were the men rich in humour and neighbourliness. In our typical 
town these favourites included Tom Kiness, an Indian, whose homely 
wit and sly humour made him a favourite at all social functions ; H 
id , the jolly toll-gate keeper with a cheery greeting for every- 
body; I B , great-hearted farmer, who, on Sunday, hitched 
his team to his big wagon and took the whole neighbourhood to 
church. “He was always ready with a bushel of potatoes for the 
poor and didn’t want the whole town to know it’; “never pressed an 
honest debtor, never picked a quarrel and never held a grudge.’ It 
is this cheeriness, forbearance and ready helpfulness which is meant 
by that succinct eulogy of the departed: “He was a good neighbour.” 














CHAPTER XIV 
THE HUMOROUS ATTITUDE 


HE habit of easing troubles and perplexity by means of hu- 

mour was well developed among the rural population. Peo- 

ple who could thus “make light of’ their troubles and ease 

those of others were highly regarded. Humour is the association with 

a serious state of mind of some trivial idea. The association relaxes 

the serious state and the sudden reduction of tension may cause fhe 

reflexes of relaxation that we term smiling and laughter. Not every- 

thing that causes laughter is humorous, for instance, a misplaced 

emphasis on a syllable of a word. If a person makes such a mistake 

unintentionally we laugh but not at his humour. However, any clever 

use of words or association of ideas that irresistibly reduces the 

serious to the trivial may be called humorous. The more perfect and 
obvious the association, the more hearty the humour. 

Several conditions of the early rural community were favourable to 
humour. One of these was the economic and social equality and 
comradeship of neighbours and the practice of getting together for 
social intercourse. In those days people did not have the means of 
recreation they have to-day and they had to make their own amusement. 
As a farmer used his wits when a machine broke down because he had 
to in order to get the work done, so men cultivated humour because 
they were thrown so much on their own resources for relaxation. 
And there was as sincere and hearty admiration for the humorist 
as for the mechanical genius. 

Another condition that made for humour was the tendency to ridi- 
cule pretensions to superiority. The farmer was keen in detecting 
and sometimes too ready to suspect such pretensions. Certain classes 
of men, whose occupations inevitably involved pretensions to leader- 
ship, particularly tempted to humorous sallies, but they must be men 
whom people did not hesitate to take in this humorous vein. For 
instance, the clergyman had serious pretensions and so he was particu- 
larly apt to be made the subject of humorous remarks by “sinners.” 


But church members frowned on this; they “tried not to laugh” at 
121 


120, RURAL HERITAGE 


a naive remark of a child about the minister. The lawyer, also, was 
by occupation somewhat assertive and was made the butt of humour. 
The rural neighbourhood was a group of equals among whom a 
sort of primitive comradeship prevailed, as compared with the “up- 
pishness” of the villages in which economic inequality was developing. 
So the essential tendencies of social relationship between families in 
the neighbourhood were different from those of the village with its 
growing tendency to adulation on the part of the socially inferior and 
pride on the part of the superior. For instance, the farmer “spoke 
to” everybody he met, whether he knew him or not, and he expected 
everybody to speak to him. In the village the inferior would not 
venture to speak to some of the superior; the superior would be an- 
noyed by this familiarity. On this background of comradeship of the 
neighbourhood the uppishness of the village stood out as laughable, 
while, on the background of the assertive-submissive relationship of 
the village, the comradely manners of the farmer caused a laugh among 
the villagers. Each group found what was contrary to its conven- 
tional behaviour to be humorous, but the farmer had the advantage 
in that his comradeship relation was more favourable to a humorous 
attitude than the village relation. The assertive individual, conscious 
of his own importance, endeavoured to maintain this serious state of 
mind and would not let himself goin humour. Assertive people some- 
times “try to be funny” but fail because, though what they say may be 
funny, their attitude is contrary to a humorous state of mind. Sub- 
missiveness and adulation are likewise contrary to humour. 

While the primitive comradeship of the early neighbourhood was 
favourable to humour, the strenuous life was against it. The humour 
of working hours was apt to incline to the ridicule with which the 
strenuous farmer strove to quicken the movements of a slow worker. 
But at the close of the day the jovial man had his inning and no one 
was so much in demand as he whose quaint humour took the sharpness 
and weariness out of life. The difference between the quality of the 
humour of the working hours, as compared with that of relaxation, 
was akin to the difference between the contemptuous laugh and the 
jovial, good-natured laugh. Only the latter is genuine laughter. On 
Sunday the religious attitude repressed humorous inclinations. Never- 
theless there were certain neighbourhood characters who ignored the 
strenuous and the religious attitudes and let themselves go in humour 
about as they pleased, though mindful of certain forbidden subjects 
of humour. 


THE HUMOROUS ATTITUDE 123 


When we turn to the subjects of humour it is evident that the 
variety of these depends on the imagination and the cleverness of the 
humorist as well as on the attitudes of the people. Religious symbols 
were by common consent removed from the sphere of humour, but 
there were unusual humorists who were given a certain freedom in 
this direction. Also the tendency was for the public to frown on the 
humorous treatment of celebrities who were taken seriously. But 
here again cleverness enabled a humorist to go a long way. 

Privately many people indulged in humorous comments on religious 
subjects and on celebrities, which they would have frowned on if made 
publicly. Those who laugh privately are quite apt publicly to make the 
socially approved obeisances. Indeed, humour is the special privilege 
of a private social circle. Only there does a man enjoy the privilege 
of honest criticism and humorous comment. In public he feels he 
must take the attitudes of the public; in private he can be himself. 
Now there was one condition that made for humour in the early rural 
community, and that was the large place that a man’s private life 
occupied in his total life. His farm was his little world, his home was 
his castle and he was by himself on his farm and in his home most of 
the time. In the leisure hours of the fall and winter, the neighbours 
came to his home and he went to theirs and this companionship of a 
few intimate equals put the individual in that expansive mood of relaxa- 
tion in which the mind naturally plays with superficial associations. 
Conversely, humour was more or less consciously cultivated to pro- 
mote that sociability that relieved from the monotony of an isolated 
life. 

To-day rural people are less isolated and more with the public in 
their amusements. They are less dependent on their own resources for 
relaxation. In so far as they take part in the social life of the vil- 
lages they are influenced by the village attitudes. In the social clubs 
of the villages, even in the theatres and concerts there is a seriousness 
on the part of those who have a sense of their superiority as well as 
on the part of those who recognize it. Wherefore, there is more social 
life but less sociability then formerly. This is particularly true in 
the villages but the village atmosphere has had an effect on the rural 
districts. Neighbours are less dependent on each other than formerly. 
They are less sociable and less inclined to humour. They do not have 
to be humorous in order to enjoy relaxation for they have the auto, 
the moving pictures and the village social life. They seldom sit down 
together for a social time. If they do they must be doing something, 


124, RURAL HERITAGE 


playing cards, for instance. People seem to be too well informed to 
talk agreeably with one another and not well enough informed to 
talk freely. They are not sincere enough to receive information with- 
out embarrassment and to give it without fear of being thought bump- 
tious. This is due to the overweening rivalry of social life which 
finds vent in card playing and other competitive games, in competitive 
dressing, competitive conversation, competitive speech-making, compet- 
itive philanthropy. Because of rivalry people cannot talk sociably 
and humorously. Rivalry has given a discretion, a reserve, a furtive- 
ness, an interested motive to social intercourse that interferes with 
the disinterested free play of humour. 

Certain phases of rivalry are somewhat humorous, for instance, 
conspicuous or false pretensions to superiority—as the grammatical 
errors of one who pretends to unusual learning, and the loud dressing 
and the pretentious and profusely ornamented homes of those who dis- 
play their wealth. The superficiality of the climbers sometimes im- 
presses spectators humorously. But the social rivalry that emanates 
from the villages weakens the old rural inclination to treat preten- 
sions humorously. Noticeable pretensions are so treated but when 
pretence becomes general, pretensions are less and less noticeable 
and so are apt to be taken seriously instead of humorously, and people 
who make sport of them are apt to be called ‘‘mean-spirited.” The 
proper spirit is that of a punctilious regard for the social rivalry of 
the place. 

There was rivalry in the early neighbourhood but it was a rivalry in 
personal superiority, was largely incidental to the day’s work and was 
not conventionalized as was the case when the standards of superiority 
had become largely material. Gradually there developed in the vil- 
lages a class of manufacturers, dealers in farm produce, merchants and 
professional men who came to be recognized as superior because of 
their wealth or political influence. And their prestige extended even 
into the rural districts because they “‘put the town on the map.” That 
is, the entire community, village as well as rural parts, was given a 
superior position in that section of the state because of these local 
celebrities. As soon as this community pride had developed, the men 
who were the factors in giving the community a manifest superiority 
became the objects of a serious adulation. The community paper, 
when referring to these men, instead of using first names or nicknames 
as heretofore and couching the reference in a jocular style, gave the 
full name and the story was written in a vein of serious adulation. 


THE HUMOROUS ATTITUDE 125 


The adulation was more pronounced in the paper than it was felt by 
the people, and it was more marked among village people than-in the 
rural parts but even there it was noticeable. Thus social rivalry and 
adulation of the superior weakened the humorous attitude. 

Another cause of weakening humour was the passing of economic 
independence. The early farmer was poor but independent because 
land was cheap and his wants were few. He lived in a log house or a 
cheap frame house and required few utensils and tools. This inde- 
pendent man felt free and easy and was inclined to give free play 
to humour. He was constantly assailing with his humour the man 
who showed any pride or self-conceit. This attitude was seen also 
in the family, where parents noticed the effect of praise on their chil- 
dren and were quick to correct conceit. So people were generally in 
the habit of giving rather stinted praise and of wearing down, by 
humour, any noticeable inclination toward a big head. Then came a 
change in economic conditions. Land rose in value, those who bought 
farms incurred debt, farm tenants began to appear, dependence on the 
money lender and the landlord increased. Farmers farmed more ex- 
tensively, needed more supplies, bought more on credit, and dependence 
on the village merchant spread. In the village dependence of work- 
men on employers developed. Because of increasing competition 
merchants felt less independent of customers, more eager to please. 
Thus everywhere there was an increase of relations of dependence; at 
the same time the humorous attitude weakened throughout the popula- 
tion. But it survived longest in the rural neighbourhoods. The un- 
usually successful farmer found that he was differently treated in the 
village after he moved there than he had been in the rural neighbour- 
hood. One who moved to the village and began buying farm prod- 
uce and kept an account at the bank was called Henry by the banker 
and by his village friends, but to his old associates from the country 
whom he happened to meet on the street he was “just Hank.” 

While the increasing rivalry and economic dependence have weak- 
ened the humorous attitude there are some new conditions that tend 
to stimulate it. In the early days the population was extremely con- 
ventional and the laugh was on the unconventional person. The hu- 
mour was of the obvious kind, lacking in imagination and subtlety. 
The new ideas and new ways of doing of a later period unsettled con- 
ventionality and disposed to a willingness to laugh at humorous sal- 
lies which before would have been resented. The humorist might 
now play with personages and ideas formerly forbidden. The break- 


126 RURAL HERITAGE 


up of social conventions widens the range of possible subjects of hu- 
mour. 

A period of weakening conventions finds a counter tendency, how- 
ever, in the seriousness of the social rivalry of the time. The break-up 
of conventions is apt to be due more to social rivalry than to any- 
thing else. This rivalry may stimulate a certain trend in social behav- 
iour which, while on the surface not contrary to humour, really is so. 
This trend is most conspicuous in villages but affects the entire rural 
community. In villages and small cities there are various groups of 
people who expect their most conspicuous members to be counted among 
the first citizens of the community. Many families wish their heads to 
attain that recognition. Each church expects its clergyman to preach 
and advertise himself into it. The superintendent of schools or the 
principal is expected by the board of education so to commend himself 
to the public as to qualify for it. The bankers, manufacturers, mer- 
chants are expected to maintain such a standard of living as will qualify 
them for it. Any man of wealth or position who does not aspire to 
enter the circle of leading citizens and continues to live humbly is 
regarded as “lacking in spirit.” These leading citizens may organize 
a social club. Then the aim of the ambitious men of the community 
is to get into the club. This club gets together once a week or once 
a month for a “feed.” These are supposed to be occasions of fun 
and humour. The rules require it. The members make a serious 
effort to observe the rules. The rules prescribe comradeship. Each 
must call the other by his first name and joke a little. But the real 
spirit of the occasion is assertive. After the feed the members are 
told by the speakers that they are the leaders of the community. They 
feel the seriousness of their position. The organization takes itself 
and its fun seriously instead of making its seriousness a matter of 
humour. The rank and file of the members move and second the 
merriment of the fun-makers, and when the pretence gets on their 
nerves a spell-binder is brought in from some neighbouring town. 

The democratic community, so-called, is made up of these various 
groups, none of them moved by any sense of equality or fellow- 
feeling, all of them under the urge of the impulse for superiority, 
each with its leader and local following. The following is just as 
serious as the leader. If the father has too much of the old rural 
sense of equality and humour to fancy the new social life, the wife and 
children endeavour to fire him with the proper spirit. The minister 
must not be jocose or indifferent about questions of precedence at 


THE HUMOROUS ATTITUDE 127 


union services or public gatherings or about his due prominence in 
public undertakings or the respect due him on the occasion of civic 
celebrations. In like manner the other organizations do not allow their 
leaders to be humorous at the expense of the serious pretensions of 
the organization. The social rivalry of the place must be taken 
seriously. This insistent seriousness of the community discourages 
humour. The community is more serious and complex in its rivalries 
than it once was with, consequently, less play room for humour. 

Because of the inhibiting effect of assertiveness and rivalry on 
humour, and because of the part played by the imagination in humour, 
the social conditions that encourage it are those which relieve from 
stress of social rivalry and stimulate the imagination. The village and 
small city presents the opposite of these necessary conditions while 
no environment better meets them than a rural community of intelli- 
gent people who know each other intimately and have a will to be 
friendly instead of assertive. Intelligent people have capacity of 
imagination and their rural environment gives them opportunity not 
only for social intercourse that stimulates imagination but also for 
the reflection and valuation of social standards that makes it possible 
to put social rivalry in its subordinate place. If anywhere you find 
people who are not blind devotees of the conventional system of social 
rivalry it is in the rural districts. Intelligent country people maintain 
their sense of opposition to the village in many of its attitudes and 
standards and those of social rivalry are among those most opposed. 
It is not a mere prejudiced opposition but, in the case of intelligent 
ruralites, is a product of reflection. 

The background against which variations in ideas and behaviour ap- 
pear humorous may be either the conventional background of the un- 
cultured person or the reflective background of the cultured. The 
conventional person is inclined to laugh at the slightest variations from 
conventions, while the humour of the cultured is a matter of reflective 
background and of insight. The humorist must have, above every- 
thing else, a true philosophy of life. The larger his comprehension 
of the great society becomes, the more varied are his humorous re- 
actions to the actual provincial society of which he is a part, until 
there is achieved the comprehension and humour of a Lincoln who, with 
his profound insight into social relations, developed an immense power 
of humour. The incidental result was his mastery of his own rivalrous 
disposition and the adjustment of it entirely to ideal requirements.’ 


CHAPTER XV 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 


HE early farmer was a religious man. These psychological 
conditions particularly made him so. First, his active life 
made him a man of strong impulses and religion served as 

a means of curbing unruly impulses and giving balance to personality. 
Second, the uncertainties, dangers and hardships of his lot made the 
consolations of religion sweet to him. “We'll have a long rest in 
heaven,” was the way he reconciled himself to his weary outlook. 
Third, the injustices of life forced him to believe that “some day every- 
thing will be made right.” Fourth, his contact with nature made him 
conscious of mystery in various processes. He liked to feel that the 
mystery was settled by the explanation that God did it. Now these 
different sources of religious feeling were not disconnected. Beliefs 
that strengthened and consoled him in his hardships and bereavements, 
as well as the belief in a day of judgment when things would be made 
right, derived plausibility from the mystery of life. God was believed 
in because the belief explained many mysterious things—the creation, 
the processes of history, the growth of crops, the future life, but 
particularly because the farmer could have God on his side in the bat- 
tles of life, and also because the belief in God gave an incentive to the 
curbing of unruly impulses and was central in the idea of the judg- 
ment. The sense of mystery would have meant little had it not served 
as a means of making plausible those beliefs that relieved from the ever 
present sense of the hardships and injustices of life, and that inspired 
to self-control. 

There were two religious types. One of these, to which most 
farmers belonged, included those who observed the conventional re- 
ligious behaviour. They might be demonstrative or reserved in their 
behaviour but they were centred not on the cultivation of a spiritual 
life that was ethically excellent but on observing the traditional cere- 
monies, professing the traditional beliefs and showing in their beha- 
viour those features that were conventionally accepted as the necessary 


distinctions between the worldly and the Christian man. This chapter 
128 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 129 


will be devoted to this conventional Christianity, that is, to institutional 
religion, and the next to the religion of those intent on the cultivation 
of a spiritual life. 

The active life of the farmer worked against dwelling on the mys- 
tery of things. At the same time his close relation with nature 
brought him into contact with mysterious processes, and this gave him 
an attitude of reverence. This attitude was not very clearly conscious. 
Most farmers were matter of fact and were apt to dismiss any feeling 
of mystery except when it was suggested by the minister. One of 
the minister’s favourite ways of arousing religious interest was, in 
walking with the farmer out to view his crops, to say, “Wonderful, 
isn’t it! What makes it grow?” Of course the farmer expected him 
to say it, yet the mystery of things was kept alive by the suggestions 
and preaching of the minister. Without this the tendency was, ex- 
cept in the case of an unusually thoughtful farmer, for the attitude 
to nature to be entirely practical. It was a matter of planting and hop- 
ing for a favourable season. However, the occupation of the farmer 
gave the minister more to work on than did that of the artisan who 
works with mechanical forces, or that of the business man whose in- 
terest centres around price movements. 

Because sense of mystery was essential in rural religion, the minister 
and the religious farmer were impatient with the scientific attitude 
that purported to explain the processes of nature according to natural 
law. In alliance with the farmer’s religious attitude, against the scien- 
tific, was his pride. His long association with the soil and the grow- 
ing crops seemed to him to belie anything about them that he did 
not know. Especially was his pride aroused when the scientific atti- 
tude was represented by some youthful student of biology or zoology 
who had been away to school. To-day progressive farmers are more 
scientific. They have become interested in soil textures, fertilizers, 
chemical and biological processes. Their children, home from school, 
are animated with the scientific attitude and it, rather than the reli- 
gious, is the socially influential attitude. Nevertheless, the religious 
attitude persists. The mass of farmers have a somewhat cynical at- 
titude toward mere scientific explanation. This is true of men who 
profess no religious belief and in spite of the increasing tendency to 
make use of the information dispensed in agricultural bulletins. 
Science is felt to be very useful but, says the farmer, “it can’t help you 
out with the weather very much.” It is impossible for one who is not 
in close touch with farm life to appreciate the farmer’s dependence on 


130 RURAL HERITAGE 


the weather. The predictions of the Weather Bureau are too general 
to meet local conditions invariably, and this impossibility of accurate 
forecasting discourages the application of scientific methods. Where- 
fore the scientific attitude is still weak among the rural population, 
and the conventional religious attitude persists. 

The average farmer did not have the character of a mystic. He 
was too active and practical. Religion was for him a matter of cer- 
tain necessary beliefs and practices rather than of a personal, mystical 
relation to the deity.t. There were in certain parts of New York reli- 
gious sects that emphasized the personal relation and there were every- 
where spiritual men and women who cultivated it. But for the typi- 
cal farmer the church represented religion and he was content to leave 
it to the minister to profess a personal relation to God. The religious 
interest of the farmer grew out of his practical activities. Bad sea- 
sons, bad luck and daily hardships might be little talked about but they 
gave experience a substratum of weariness, worry and disappointment. 
Experience made many farmers pessimistic. ‘This attitude explains a 
good deal in the behaviour of farmers, for instance, their doubt about 
projects for the improvement of agricultural conditions. Now the 
power of religion lay in the fact that it diverted attention from the 
evils of life by prescribing the ceremonies through which the farmer 
could enlist God on his behalf. This essential aspect of religion was 
called special providence. Through special providence the season 
might be made favourable or adversity might be turned to the account 
of man’s good in the long run. 

This practical reliance on God on the part of the independent farmer 
is to be distinguished from fearful submission. As a religious atti- 
tude it is different from that of the devotee of an autocratic ecclesiasti- 
cal system. Nevertheless, the farmer’s practical reliance on God had 
an aspect of fear. The inclination to win God’s help by observing 
certain prescribed ceremonies was, on its obverse side, a fear not to do 
so. So the religious man was termed a “God-fearing’’ man. Because 
the religious attitude involved a fearful sense of dependence, the 
farmer ordinarily was somewhat shamefaced in “‘professing”’ his reli- 
gion. Self-respect required that a man be not afraid, that he depend 
on himself. However, not all farmers had this apologetic attitude in 
connection with religion. Occasionally in a church gathering the eld- 
ers of the church took it upon themselves to expound religion. Be- 
cause they were supposed to understand doctrine it was not humiliating 
for them to talk religion. They were not talking religion but doctrine. 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 131 


Their talk sprang from their superior knowledge of doctrine. For 
the same reason it was not humiliating for the minister to talk reli- 
gion. His motive in talking was not his sense of dependence but 
to glorify God as only he could by enlightening and stirring the emo- 
tions of his hearers. A man who could do this was regarded as 
“right smart.’’ But he must not bring in any new doctrine. The 
elders would show such a young preacher that they knew what sound 
doctrine was. On one such occasion an elder arose to rebuke the 
minister and the parish never forgot it. “He just shut his eyes and 
began to talk and he didn’t lack for words.” He was not professing 
his religion but declaring sound doctrine. His assurance was in 
marked contrast to that of the more humble member who, in the after- 
meeting during a revival, in a few faltering phrases testified to his 
faith that the Lord was with him. 

The independent life of the farmer somewhat minimized the third 
religious incentive mentioned in the first paragraph, that is, the need 
of believing that some day the injustices of life would be made right. 
This incentive is compelling in an oppressed population but less so 
among independent farmers. However, many a victim of a hard, 
shrewd man found comfort in the thought that God would punish 
him in the day of judgment. Many a wronged woman clung to the 
same belief. It functioned to relieve pent-up feelings when the law 
was powerless to achieve justice and forbade the taking of vengeance. 

The practical farmer of the early days was not easy to convert be- 
cause he was inclined to rely on his own strength. But the God- 
fearing attitude was prevalent. And, if social suggestion was not 
sufficient, some particularly depressing experience might give the nec- 
essary stimulus, for instance, a death in the family. This gave the 
matter-of-fact farmer a shuddering pause in his monotonous routine. 
Such a time was propitious for a religious awakening and the minister 
was not apt to be slow to take advantage of it. The natural attitude 
to death was one of shrinking, but religion gave assurance of a future 
life and a reunion with loved ones. Once having made his peace with 
God, the individual was at rest with regard to the future. 

The typical farmer was practical rather than emotional or mystical 
in his religion. He wanted the help of God in a practical way and 
relied on formal religious observances to get it. Communities with 
this practical kind of religion sometimes were adjacent to communities 
characterized by emotional religion. Our typical town offers 2 case 
in point. Ina preceding chapter the difference between its topography 


132 RURAL HERITAGE 


and that of the hill town to the south was pointed out. There was 
also a difference in the religion of the two towns. The farmers of 
our typical town were extremely practical in their religion, while the 
town to the south was characterized by “crazy” religious conduct. 
The revivals of our town were as gentle zephers compared with the 
storm-swept town to the south. Itinerant preachers belonging to the 
Mormon, Perfectionist and Second Adventist sects preached in our 
town from time to time but with little effect. The town to the south, 
on the other hand, has been the scene of great camp meetings, frenzied 
revivals, and of Perfectionist and Second Adventist crazes. Stories 
of miraculous healing and of supernatural appearances were current 
there.* This difference in the religion of the two towns is due in 
part at least to economic conditions for, as shown in a previous chap- 
ter, the town to the south was more hilly and the land less valuable 
than much of the land of our typical town and the result was a shifting 
of the less efficient and more emotional farmers into the hill country 
to the south and of the more efficient and shrewd farmers into the 
fertile valley to the north. 

The practical and the emotional religion had this in common that 
neither questioned the prevailing supernatural system. Emotional re- 
ligion was sometimes fostered by practical clergymen as a means of 
combating a scientific attitude. Thus ministers maintained that “if 
you get thoroughly alive to the presence of the Holy Spirit you don’t 
need to fear scepticism. The time the devil begins to suggest doubts 
is when you are spiritually dead.’” Thus there is no hard and fast 
line between emotional and practical religion. The practical farmer 
might get a little emotional during a revival. The point is that his 
religion was more a matter of observing certain ceremonies than of 
emotional experience. 

The aspects of practical religion consisted of a profession and observ- 
ance of the beliefs, the ceremonies and the Christian behaviour through 
which the help of God was to be secured. The essential ceremony was 
Sabbath-keeping and the necessary behaviour was called “godly be- 
haviour.” This ceremony and behaviour are emphasized in the vital 
portion of the covenant of the Presbyterian Church of our typical town, 
organized in 1823. “We engage to sanctify the Sabbath by laying 
aside all worldly employments at the time when we believe the Sab- 
bath begins, and not to do any work, except it be of real necessity or 
mercy, until the Sabbath, including twenty-four hours, is ended. We 
will never forsake the assembling of ourselves together, but will con- 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 133 


stantly attend the public worship of God on the Sabbath; we promise 
to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil, to be temperate in all 
things; to engage in no employment until we are convinced that it is 
not incompatible with duty, and to lead an industrious, sober, peaceable 
and godly life.” 

The essential religious observances were, then, abstinence from all 
unnecessary work on the Sabbath and attendance at church. Church 
attendance did not signify entire acceptance of the beliefs of the church. 
Even those who were not members of the church regularly attended. 
As one old resident who was not a “professing Christian” said: ‘‘We 
all tumbled into the lumber wagon and went to meeting as regularly 
as Sunday came. One would as soon have thought of not sitting 
down to dinner as of not going to meeting.” There were several rea- 
sons for church attendance in addition to its significance as a ceremony 
of worship. For one thing it was the only occasion on which a good 
part of the community regularly got together. There was the enjoy- 
ment of being together, the handshaking and exchange of greetings 
after worship, the visiting of the women in the church and of the men 
outside. As two neighbouring families enjoyed a sociable time at 
the close of the day and felt this sociability indispensable to the en- 
joyment of complete relaxation, so going to church was a social occa- 
sion for the whole community at the end of the week’s work. The 
old phrase “going to meeting” that was used instead of our “going 
to church” signified this function of church attendance as a meeting 
of the families of the community. 

Of course the religious function of the church service was empha- 
sized above its social function. It signified a due respect for God as 
creator and law-giver and giver of all good. The service had also 
a moral significance. It was the main expression of the moral unity 
of the group, the occasion on which the group was made conscious of 
its purpose to live according to the moral standards of the community. 
But the minister preached that it was not sufficient to live a moral life. 
One must recognize the divine lawgiver. It strengthened the tend- 
ency to “live true’ to the attitudes and beliefs of the community to 
think of them as laws laid down by a divine lawgiver. Consequently 
the representative of this lawgiver was listened to with deep respect 
and the regret was correspondingly keen when some of the brethren 
felt that they could not follow him in all he declared, for instance, 
in an harangue against slavery. It was deemed unfortunate that a 
minister should take up secular matters instead of confining himself 


4h he RURAL HERITAGE 


to the lofty presentation of divine truth, in the acceptance of which 
there could be no difference of opinion. 

Even more important than attendance at church was _ absti- 
nence from work on Sunday. A man might not attend church, 
might, in fact, be inclined to Unitarianism or Spiritualism, and 
not arouse social indignation as long as he did not work on Sun- 
day. The strong feeling of religious difference was that between the 
Christian and the infidel, the infidel being the man who, preaching 
the supremacy of natural law, dared to work on Sunday. Such 
-an awful sin was “a slap in the face of the Almighty’ and destined 
to bring speedy vengeance. A man who worked on Sunday or 
who indulged in week day pleasures on that day was felt to have 
a dangerously defiant attitude toward the moral standards of the 
community. He irritated his neighbours as one who had a dis- 
position to disregard morality. Consequently people who disbelieved 
Christianity and did not attend church still observed the Sabbath by 
not working on Sunday. One such individual was heard to exclaim, 
on seeing two strangers fishing on Sunday, ‘““My goodness, see those 
men fishing on Sunday! They must be unruly fellows!” He meant 
dangerously defiant of social custom. The intense disapproval of 
Sabbath-breaking was due, then, to the fact that abstinence from work 
on Sunday was the important social evidence of an inclination to keep 
God’s law and to observe law and custom generally. Furthermore, 
there survived the superstition that God might punish the whole com- 
munity for the sin of one, for instance, by a drought, and the minister 
did not hesitate to intensify this fear by a sermon on Achan. 

Because of this intense feeling about working on Sunday, few men 
were inclined to brave the wrath of the community by doing it. 
Occasionally there was one. Often he was a man who was “bad” in 
other ways, and who seemed to care little what the community thought 
about him. Such a man was thoroughly detested. He was more ab- 
horred because of his Sabbath-breaking than for any other aspect of 
his badness, even if it included beating his wife. He was the “‘hellion”’ 
of the neighbourhood. When a father reproved a boy whom he found 
breaking the Sabbath by making something or playing some game, 
he called him by the name of the man the community so thoroughly 
hated. In many parts of the state this feeling against working on 
Sunday and playing games like baseball continued unchanged until 
after 1900. Then there came a great change. Men who had 
denounced those who worked or played games on Sunday became less 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 135 


severe. Working and playing on Sunday increased. Boys began to 
play baseball on a regular Sunday schedule. The minister merely 
remonstrated kindly with the individual instead of denouncing the 
sin from the pulpit as formerly. The change seems to have been due 
a good deal to the auto. Before the time of the auto, going on a pic- 
nic on Sunday was denounced. Then picnics became common. Then 
farmers who did not have autos went to work in their fields and, 
if remonstrated with, declared, “I don’t think it is any worse to work 
on Sunday than to go tearing all over creation in an auto.” 

Works of necessity always were done on Sunday. Each community 
had certain recognized work of this kind. Everywhere “the chores,” 
that is, feeding and caring for the animals, were done on Sunday. 
In the second period, in the fruit section, if a spell of warm, bright 
weather suddenly ripened the peaches, it was not only permissible but 
a duty to pick them on Sunday. “Isn’t it better for God to get the 
money than to let the crop rot?” was the answer given the grain 
farmer back on the upland who questioned this custom of the fruit 
section. Because grain does not ripen so suddenly it was generally 
maintained in the grain section that a farmer should so plan the 
cutting of his grain as not to have any down on Sunday and liable 
to be spoiled by the weather. Old residents tell of a preacher who 
had a parish in a grain section and another in the neighbouring fruit 
section, and preached in the morning in the grain section from the 
text, “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy,’”’ and in the after- 
noon in the fruit section from the text, ‘““The Sabbath was made for 
men and not man for the Sabbath.” ‘For once he had to prepare two 
different sermons.” 

This fearful observance of the Sabbath implied a conception of 
God handed down with the culture of preceding ages but fostered by 
the conditions of this age. Let us examine these conditions. Nature 
was seen to have processes of invariable sequence, as the diurnal change 
from light to darkness and the succession of the seasons, but these 
sequences involved vital uncertainties as to the weather. An unusu- 
ally early or late frost, an unusually wet or dry season might mean a 
loss of valuable crops. Now the weather was regarded as subject to 
the regulation of special providence. There was an “over-ruling prov- 
idence”; God might influence the weather according to His mood. 
Now dependence on the mood of another was by no means contrary 
to social experience. As pointed out in a preceding chapter, the parent 
exacted obedience to commands not on the basis of their reasonable- 


136 RURAL HERITAGE 


ness but “because I say so.” And a parent’s say-so depended a 
good deal on his mood. The child regarded the mood of the father 
with apprehension. When he got up in the morning he wondered 
whether father “would be grouty to-day” and kept out of the way until 
his parent’s humour became apparent. This attitude of the child to 
an arbitrary parent predisposed to a belief in a God who acted accord- 
ing to his mood. Fearful or unfavourable natural conditions such as 
storms, drought were felt to be, possibly, manifestations of God’s an- 
ger. Now the weekly abstinence from work and attendance at church 
was the ceremony whereby the people regularly took the precaution of 
making their peace with God and so insuring a mood in which the 
seasons would be ordered in mercy. 

The attitude of children to parents was not, in all cases, an attitude 
to an arbitrary parent. To many the theology of an arbitrary God 
sounded rather strange. But the belief was impressed on children 
even by the most reasonable parents. It was a relic of an autocratic 
ecclesiastical system, but was tempered a good deal by the family atti- 
tudes’‘of the time. Children who had an unusual affection for their 
parents but who, as children, accepted the customary religious beliefs 
sometimes found, on the death of their parents, that these beliefs had 
anew meaning. ‘The attitude which they had had toward the parents, 
now that the parents were gone was transmuted to the religious sphere 
and gave the individual a more vital conception of a spiritual parent. 
Loss of a parent was considered by the minister to be a time favourable 
for the conversion of children. No sentence of the evangelist was 
more weighty than “Beware of thinking lightly of your father’s and 
your mother’s God.” 

Thus family, as well as economic attitudes were powerful incen- 
tives to religion. The intervention of divine providence was sought 
on behalf of loved ones as well as for economic ends. And it was 
particularly in connection with loved ones that the central aspect of 
religion came to the fore. Religion had to do with the future state, 
with the life after death and the reunion with loved ones. Heaven 
was a place where broken families would be reunited. This belief 
more than any other thrilled the believer. The hard experiences of 
life were merely “God trying me and making me worthy of heaven.” 
This side of religion appealed particularly to the farmer’s wife but 
it moved the men also. However much the hardheaded farmer might 
make religion a practical matter for this life, it had to do also with 
the future life. This was kept before the farmer by the minister 





ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 137 


and his solitary life conduced to dwelling on it more or less. This con- 
ception of a future life was a point of departure for a series of ideas 
which were subjectively determined and which were prompted by at- 
titudes other than the economic, which had to do with the objective, 
material world. ‘You cannot take anything with you’ was the laconic 
way in which this contrast of religion with the economic life was ex- 
pressed. However, though religion was a means of satisfying peo- 
ple about the future life, particularly by giving assurance of a re- 
united family, and though the man for whom the unseen was a 
means of real spiritual development might be loved and his spiritual 
life made a matter of neighbourhood comment, it was the prosperous 
farmer, whose religion was ostensibly a practical matter of church at- 
tendance and respectable living, who had the influence in the church. 

Belief in special providence was the central belief of the practical 
farmer. It was generally believed that God gave prosperity and the 
fact that a man was prosperous was taken by him as signifying that 
he had the favour of God. When a period of good prices made many 
farmers prosperous there was a general feeling that the Lord was with 
them. If it was objected that the unrighteous were prosperous as well 
as the righteous the farmer quoted, with an attitude of resignation, a 
verse of Scripture: “He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on 
the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” If the 
argument went further the farmer would declare that “The devil will 
come in for his own.” That is, the prosperous man who served the 
devil would find that he was not ahead any for the devil would come 
in for his own. Such aman might be prosperous but he would not be 
happy. ‘There was one thing that the farmer valued above prosperity 
and that was a happy family life. And because the prosperous man 
who was irreligious was apt to find it difficult to control his children, 
without the sanction that religion gave self-denial, it really did seem 
oftentimes that the devil did pursue the prosperous man and spoil his 
family happiness. 

Among the attitudes connected with the belief in special providence is 
that of resignation. If the godly farmer prayed for some good turn 
of fortune and did not get it, he might later find that it was better 
for him that he did not get it, so his faith in prayer was confirmed 
by not having it answered. God knew best. And if it was not evi- 
dent why it was best that the prayer had not been answered, still God 
could make any misfortune redound to man’s spiritual growth. The 
minister preached that, just as it was not always best for the child 


138 RURAL HERITAGE 


to give it what it wanted, so it was not always best for man that 
God should give him what he wanted ; but God could use a misfortune 
in this life to make man more fit for happiness in the next. So the 
belief in special providence was maintained though providence might 
apparently fail to act. Farmers do not seem to have been generally 
subject to agitation because of loss or disappointment. Religion 
resigned the God-fearing farmer to the disappointments of life. To- 
day resignation frequently is expressed in a non-religious form, for 
instance, “If we had prosperity all the time, we wouldn’t appreciate it 
as much as we do.” The non-religious expression of resignation often 
is a concession to an increasing social tendency to disbelief, while the 
farmer himself in his heart is as religious as ever. 

Among the farmers of the early period there were various non- 
religious forms of resignation. “Whatever is to be will be” is a 
formula that was prevalent in the early days and survives to-day. 
As to resignation to the death of a friend or relative, the formula 
next in importance to the religious formula, “It is God’s will,” was an 
economic one, “His work is done.’”’ Work meant not work in the 
narrower sense but the life work. When the father and mother had 
raised a family of children and had seen them started in life they 
began to feel that their work was done. The person who was to die 
was reconciled by the thought that his or her work was done. Con- 
versely a middle-aged person who was seriously ill was strengthened 
in the belief that he or she would not die because his or her work was 
not yet done, and this faith and determination not to die increased the 
chances of recovery. If he or she did die, then it was said that God’s 
ways are unaccountable to man. For some reason it was for the best, 
if we only knew it. 

The belief in special providence involved a willingness to do what- 
ever would win the favour of providence. Hence the supreme interest 
in Sabbath observance. It was believed that the Lord would prosper 
the Sabbath keeper. The minister warned against the Sabbath 
breaker. He preached that not only would he suffer in the next life 
but also he would be sorry in this life and the prevailing belief was 
that an unbeliever “will get his pay in this life.” Sooner or later 
some sickness or misfortune is apt to come to every family, so the 
Sabbath breaker would, sooner or later, stand discredited. Illness of 
himself or his family, loss by fire, disease among his animals were 
solemnly pointed to by the neighbours as punishment for Sabbath 
breaking. The Sabbath breaker left unpunished was never mentioned 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 139 


or it was maintained that “‘he isn’t dead yet.” The sickness or mis- 
fortune of the Sabbath keeper passed without comment. The scepti- 
cally inclined were more or less influenced by this attitude of the 
community. They secretly feared that what the community was 
thinking might come true. If the farmer was not afraid, his wife 
was. So men who had no religion were inclined to keep the Sabbath. 
Sometimes a man “had to have a lesson” before he was brought to 
his knees. In one community the story was told of how a man who 
habitually worked on Sunday lost a cow. Still he continued to work 
on Sunday. Then the lightning struck his barn. He stopped work- 
ing on Sunday. An instance like this of a recalcitrant farmer brought 
to his knees had a pronounced effect on the imagination of the country- 
side. 

Sabbath observance by abstinence from unnecessary work on the 
whole contributed to economic efficiency because, for a part of the 
year at least the population was overworked and rest one day in seven 
was a welcome let-down. In the course of the centuries there has 
developed a weekly work-relaxation rhythm with which rhythmic bio- 
logical and mental processes have become associated. The fixity of a 
religious practice which satisfies an essential psychological process is 
assumed to be accounted for by the religious justifications of it, but the 
fact that these do not account for it is evident when the justifications 
become discredited and the practice stays on. To-day farmers no 
longer generally believe that Sabbath breaking will be punished by 
some misfortune befalling the guilty one, yet, for the most part, they 
do not work regularly on that day as they do on week days. Originally 
it was a rest for the farmer to remain indoors and let religious con- 
templation absorb his mind and take it off his work. To-day the 
auto enables him to go whither he will. 

The practical farmer inherited a theological system essential in 
which was the belief in a God of wrath against sinners. It was 
believed that God would punish sinners in this life and that there 
was an eternal punishment for all sinners in the next. The minister 
was not backward in asserting all this and the people believed it. At 
the same time among the people the tendency was not to talk much 
about hell, more about heaven, and not to ascribe the misfortune suf- 
fered by the sinner in this life to an angry God so much as to the nat- 
ural result of serving the devil. However, believers professed the tra- 
ditional theology in toto. The series of beliefs involved were the sin 
of Adam, the anger of God, the condemnation of all men to eternal 


140 RURAL HERITAGE 


punishment for the sin of one, the salvation of men from this fate 
through believing that the sacrifice of Christ satisfied God’s anger, 
loving Him for His sacrifice and showing this by joining the church. 
This theological system gave an incentive to soul saving, that is, to 
presenting these doctrines to unbelievers in a way to arouse them to 
a sense of their lost condition and incite them to come out and join the 
church. The church annually launched a soul saving movement called 
a revival. This usually assumed the form of a series of meetings 
held each evening for some weeks during the winter, and in which 
two or more churches of the community usually united under the 
leadership of a professional evangelist. 

Revivals were held throughout the rural parts of New York up to 
the close of the last century and, in some parts, after that time. 
There were stirring revivals throughout the state in the years 1801, 
1816, 1819, 1836, 1838, 1847, 1866, 1877, 1879. In addition to 
these great revivals, the churches of the community held “special 
meetings’ almost every winter. The methods employed were every- 
where much the same. The evangelist had to contend with the luke- 
warmness of the “formal Christians’? as well as with the sinners. 
One of his favourite methods was to begin with an attack on the 
lukewarm and the “erring brethren.” In doing this he cleverly took 
advantage of the attitude to church members of those he ultimately 
aimed to reach, that is, the sinners. Their attitude was represented in 
the oft-repeated sneer, “I’d rather not be a church member than to 
be one like’ So-and-So. The evangelist began by attacking So-and- 
So. He had learned that So-and-So was addicted to hard cider. So, 
from the pulpit on the first night he declared: “There are those 
among you who profane the name of God by your empty profession. 
I am talking about the man who professes total abstinence and then in 
secret likes his hard cider.’’ The few sinners present heard this and 
told the others how the evangelist “gave it’? to So-and-So who was 
known to like his hard cider. More sinners came the next night to 
hear other brethren “get it.” Finally, when the evangelist had got 
all the sinners there he turned on them. Some of them were put 
under conviction the first night. Others were “mad, so mad that 
they could not stay away.’ Each night the excitement increased. 
The evangelist told the sinners that it was because he loved them that 
he warned them and denounced their ways. The sinners retaliated, 
on one occasion, by firing off a cannon in front of the church and 
surrounding the church in an angry crowd to mob the preacher. 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 141 


But the preacher stood his ground, declaring “I’d rather make you 
mad than not; when you get mad there’s some hope for you.” And, 
sure enough, “‘some of the maddest were finally converted and praised 
the Lord the loudest.’’ As to the brethren who had been attacked and 
also were angry, when they saw the sinners under conviction they 
forgot their own humiliation. However, an evangelist often left 
bitter animosities in the community. While the more philosophical 
were reconciled by the reflection that “We all got it,” some were not 
blessed with this comforting sense of the general wickedness. 

The impulse for salvation from eternal punishment was what gave 
the impetus to revivals. As soon as the evangelist got sinners 
thoroughly aroused to the certainty of eternal punishment, they were 
in a mood to accept his suggestions as to the way of salvation. In 
making eternal punishment essential Protestants were at one with 
Catholics. As one Catholic farmer put it, to prove that the different 
sects were not as far apart as appeared on the surface, “I guess we 
all are trying to keep out of hell.” This emphasis on eternal punish- 
ment was due to the reiteration of evangelists and priests in their 
intent on making good their social control. The professing Christian 
dwelt on heaven rather than on hell. If a person really believed in 
eternal torment for those of his friends who were unsaved, of course 
he would be constantly urging on them their lost condition, but this 
was never done except in a period of revival excitement. Even then 
it was more natural to speak to unsaved relatives and neighbours of 
the goodness of God and of the happy future that might be theirs 
than of eternal punishment. 

The sectarian feeling between Protestants and Catholics was due 
not so much to the different beliefs of the two sects as to the attitudes 
of authority and subordination that characterized the Catholic church 
and the alleged servile attitude of Catholics to the priest, as compared 
with the democratic attitude of Protestant churches and the inde- 
pendent attitude of members to the minister. The attitude of the 
American farmer was one of independence and resistance of an 
assumption of authority by ecclesiastics so that he disliked the tradi- 
tional attitude of the Catholic Church. The aversion was primarily 
towards the church rather than towards individual members. The 
Catholic farmer was thought of as “just ignorant enough” to let the 
priest keep him in subjection. But here is a strange inconsistency. 
Along with this hostile reaction to the autocratic Catholic attitude there 
was a tendency to excuse and justify it. After criticizing Catholics, 


142 RURAL HERITAGE 


Protestants sometimes hastened to say: “After all we could not do 
without the Catholic Church. You’ve got to keep the masses down.” * 
Protestants regarded this as the function of Protestant religion as well. 
“The religion of that early day was emotional rather than spiritual, 
and hell-fire was preached more than Christian living; but in spite of 
dogmatic narrowness, the Christian atmosphere helped much to hold 
that vigorous, fun-loving, intemperate, pioneer people within reason- 
able bounds.’’* It was generally believed that the natural impulses of 
man are bad, that inhibition of them is necessary not only for per- 
sonal success but also for social order. The idea was that without 
constant emphasis on self-restraint young people would be uncon- 
trollable and families would get nothing ahead and would be “on the 
town” in bad times. As the immigration of Irishmen and other 
foreigners of the Catholic faith increased there was an increasing 
sense of the importance of the church. The priest was expected to 
control his parishioners and was criticized when he failed to restrain 
conspicuous self-indulgence, for instance, when Catholics would stop 
at the tavern for a drink on the way home from church. 

Not only between Catholics and Protestants but also between dif- 
ferent Protestant sects there was pronounced sectarian feeling. This 
was due to the difference between sects in their attitude to pleasure. 
Between Protestant sects that were alike austere in their attitude to 
pleasure, as the Congregationalists, Baptists and Methodists, there was 
little sectarian feeling, as compared with that between sects that were 
austere and those that would not proscribe dancing and card-playing, 
for instance, the Episcopalians. Difference in essential beliefs also 
played a part in sectarianism. The feeling against Unitarians was as 
strong as that against Catholics because Unitarians denied the divinity 
of Christ as interpreted by the evangelical sects. This feeling against 
Unitarians diminished in the second and third periods as the impor- 
tance of beliefs diminished but that against Catholics did not. For the 
Catholic Church continued autocratic in principle and therefore con- 
trary to the democratic attitude of American rural life. 

Another factor in sectarianism was the rivalry of sects for members 
and for the attention of the community. This affected every sect in 
its relation to the others. It caused churches to improve the attrac- 
tive features of the church edifice and furnishings and of the church 
services. It also caused sects to emphasize their distinctive beliefs. 
Strength of belief often seemed to issue more from a’ feeling of 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 143 


defiance of other sects than from any religious value of the belief 
itself. Distinctive rites and forms of church government seem to 
have been emphasized from this motive. 

Another reason for sectarian feeling was that it was in harmony 
with the prevailing emphasis on loyalty. This was a deep-seated 
rural attitude. The feeling was that a man must be loyal to his 
family, his community, his political party, his church. The result was 
that, while there was ordinarily no pronounced feeling between sects 
which emphasized the same underlying tendencies of social relation- 
ship, the same attitude toward pleasure and the same essential beliefs, 
still each church member was out-and-out for his own church and 
would not attend the church of another sect if one of his own was 
accessible. A church member who was drawn from a service in 
his own church by an attraction in another was contemned as lacking 
in loyalty. Now this loyalty was vitally connected with the loyalty 
of children to parents. Parents felt that it was incumbent on their 
children, as an expression of filial loyalty, to accept the church of their 
parents. Nothing more hurt a parent than to have a son or daughter 
join another church, unless after marriage, when the wife, if a 
member of another church, joined the church of her husband. 

We have said that sects differed in their attitude to pleasure. The 
sects that were strongest in the rural districts were austere in their 
attitude to pleasure. These sects disapproved of billiard, pool and 
card playing, dancing and theatre-going. The church did not formally 
disapprove of liquor drinking until about 1840. In fact up to that 
time it was thought uncivil to fail to offer the minister a glass of 
ale or wine when he made a pastoral call. The younger generation, 
however, were more inclined than the older to drink to excess. The 
saloons of the rural neighbourhoods became dens of drunkenness and 
by 1840 total abstinence had become a watchword of most Protestant 
sects. The reaction against excessive liquor drinking was not con- 
fined to the churches. In 1844 the Washingtonian temperance move- 
ment spread through New York. Lecturers pictured the lost condition 
of the drinker and choruses of young men sang temperance songs. 
Great excitement prevailed and a large number signed the pledge to 
total abstinence. For some years the temperance question continued 
uppermost and everybody took sides. Many towns voted “‘no licence” 
and others polled the largest ‘‘no licence” vote in the history of the 
town. However, the feeling against the liquor traffic was soon 


144 RURAL HERITAGE 


on the wane, and the resolutions against liquor drinking adopted by 
the churches became dead letter$, though it continued to be frowned 
on, particularly by the Baptist and Methodist sects. 

The minister’s favourite line was against self-indulgence and 
worldliness in general. He built on two principles. The first was that 
the only way to avoid excessive indulgence is to abstain from all 
indulgence. You never can be sure of your control in moderate in- 
dulgence. Moderate liquor drinking was, therefore, declared to be as 
reprehensible as drunkenness. By the same logic indulgence in all 
the proscribed forms of pleasure was held to be equally sinful. As 
he said, “A man who has a billiard table in his house is as bad as a 
saloon-keeper.” The second principle was, “You are your brother’s 
keeper.”” It was admitted that some men might be strong enough to 
indulge in forbidden pleasures without suffering great moral harm. 
Nevertheless to do so was sinful for, although you may be strong 
enough to withstand temptation, you may, by indulging, make your 
brother to offend. “For your influence on the lives of others God 
will hold you accountable in the day of judgment.” To this doctrine 
the pleasure-loving individual retorted that he did not believe he was 
his brother’s keeper; he regarded himself as free to live his own life 
and to indulge himself as he liked. He calculated he was able to 
stop short of excessive indulgence but if he did not it was his own 
affair. This conflict between the self-denying and the self-indulging 
people was the main feature of the religious life of the early days. 
A man must be saved from his lower nature, from his impulses to 
self-indulgence. That was the doctrine of the church. 

Consistency was a much extolled virtue. It meant observing every 
feature of Christian behaviour. The minister was not only the 
leader in worship but the exemplar of righteousness. He must be 
consistent in everything. He was, like the farmer, primarily a man of 
action, not of thought. His business was to declare dogma and the 
Christian standards of conduct and to practise what he preached. 
The preferred type of minister was the “straightforward man,” erect 
in bearing, unequivocal in thought, frank even to bluntness in ex- 
pression, consistent in thought and action. There must be no com- 
promise with worldliness. The minister must believe not only in 
temperance but in total abstinence and “come out fair and square for 
it.” One must be a total abstainer or he was as bad as a drunkard. 
One must believe every single religious doctrine or he was an infidel. 
One was bound for heaven or for hell. 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 145 


The minister was expected to exemplify in his words and man- 
ner the spirit of unworldliness. His black apparel, dignified mien 
and “‘set’’ facial expression evidenced self-restraint. He not only 
preached against the proscribed amusements but occasionally de- 
nounced from the pulpit commercial enterprises, as full of temptations 
to dishonesty. In the early decades more than one minister was 
dismissed by the church for owning stock in a commercial enterprise. 
Thus in personal appearance, conduct and preaching the minister 
exemplified unworldliness. 

The minister’s unworldiness was a public concern because on it 
depended his efficiency. His intercessions for the beneficent inter- 
vention of providence would not be successful unless his behaviour 
was “well pleasing” to God. Divine aid was sought not only in con- 
nection with the weather but also in those exigencies in which human 
help was of no avail, as in cases of sickness which baffled the physi- 
cian’s skill. On the minister’s blamelessness before God depended his 
power to serve his people in these vital exigencies. 

As one who stood thus near to God, the minister was regarded with 
awe. A call from him was a solemn occasion. He was jealously 
required to visit all families of the church impartially, for his visits 
had an important social significance: the fact that the minister called 
upon and prayed with a family showed that family to be respectable 
and living in the way approved by the community. The minister was 
expected not to visit a family that was not living up to the moral re- 
quirements of the community, not to eat and drink with the ungodly. 
Doing this would cast suspicion of worldliness on him and it would 
evidence a social approval of families of which the community did 
not approve. 

The self-restraint or unworldliness of institutional religion is to be 
distinguished from the self-restraint of personal religion. The latter 
involved a sense of personal allegiance to Christ, the cultivation of an 
attitude of “Thy will be done,” a crucifixion of self that the Christian 
might know only the will of God. But unworldliness for the rank 
and file of church people meant, not the self-restraint of personal 
allegiance, but self-denial for its own sake, that is, because that 
represented what was to the people of that day exemplary character. 
It was exemplary because it conduced to efficiency in work and 
accumulation. Self-indulgence would interfere with steady work. 
Anything that had a tendency to weaken man for the struggle with 
nature was proscribed. 


146 RURAL HERITAGE 


When in the second period self-denial was no longer as strict an 
economic necessity as at first, the more austere ministers who con- 
tinued to preach self-denial found their influence decreasing. The 
tendency was to be less straightforward in the preaching of morality, 
One line of moral conduct after another, once sanctioned by religion, 
was relegated to the sphere of the “‘secular’’ and, as such, was “out- 
side the sphere of religion.’”’ The tendency was to confine preaching 
more and more to strictly theological matter, or to take some social 
topic that was running in the papers and magazines at the time. The 
minister, instead of emphasizing his unworldliness, came more and 
more to display his knowledge of the world. Especially in the villages, 
during the second period, the successful minister was the handsome, 
well dressed, sociable man who had travelled extensively, read widely 
and could be entertaining at all times, in sermons as well as in social 
functions. It was the sagacious minister, who avoided “bones of 
contention,” that came to be more and more sought after. To be 
sure, he himself must not play cards and dance; but it would not do to 
come out too strongly against these amusements for others. 

The rural religion was an adaptive culture in the sense that it con- 
tributed to economic and social efficiency. Sabbath keeping strength- 
ened the people because of the needed rest and because the church 
services idealized the attitudes involved in efficient living under the 
prevailing conditions. Religion involved no imagination. It was a 
functioning of attitudes. Hence the firmness of religious faith. 
The old residents with whom I discussed religion admitted that it 
made people more efficient workers—of course it did—that is, pro- 
vided they did not get carried away by strange doctrines. But to 
say that its truth lay in its contribution to efficiency, that it was true 
merely as a way of thinking and doing that strengthened one for the 
battle of life and not because the beliefs really were true, that was 
another matter. The doctrines were really true, of course they were. 
God was a being, a person, just as distinct and personal as any other 
person. He created the earth as described in the Bible and ordained 
the Sabbath. One could not doubt any part of the Bible without 
casting suspicion on it all. The farmer accepted the Bible as literally 
inspired and left it to the minister to explain away whatever incon- 
sistencies between various parts of the Bible this belief involved. 

This strict orthodoxy was strengthened by the farmer’s isolation, 
which fostered a strong preference for the familiar, including the 
familiar doctrines, formulas and ceremonies. His isolation also made 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 147 


his mental processes largely retrospective so that he dwelt upon the 
past. In this reminiscence he dwelt especially on ideas that he liked, 
and other ideas were adhered to because of their connection with these. 
The idea of loved ones whom he would see again suggested a place 
and this place a deity who made the place. So retrospection inten- 
sified orthodoxy. Fear in its various forms had the same effect— 
fear of the social disapproval of heterodoxy, fear as to the uncertain 
future. The farmer felt that he was on the safe side if he accepted reli- 
gious doctrines as laid down—on the safe side for this life and the 
next. Pride also strengthened orthodoxy. There were certain beliefs 
that the farmer seemed to hold because of the satisfaction this gave 
his pride. The Baptist doctrine of close communion often seemed 
to be held with a feeling that, if surrendered, the other sects would 
say the Baptists were giving up. This pride and defiance of other 
sects was especially marked in connection with the less essential 
doctrines that distinguish different sects. Orthodoxy was due also 
to the constructive tendency. For an hour or more on Sunday the 
minister expounded a logical sermon, a structure of ideas, and farmers 
capable of constructiveness in ideas enjoyed the sermon. To satisfy 
the constructive tendency all ideas that were necessary to a consistent 
discourse must be accepted. So the orthodox attitude included an 
emphasis on consistency. Aside from these more fundamental tend- 
encies a variety of other attitudes contributed to orthodoxy. As the 
child accepted every injunction of the parent as such, so the Bible was 
accepted as literally inspired from cover to cover. If a person doubted 
any part of the Bible as conventionally interpreted, he doubted it 
all. With the passing of isolation and of family and neighbourhood 
centredness, social attitudes so changed as to weaken orthodoxy. 

The generally accepted theology was a system of the supernatural 
that explained all the problems of the universe satisfactorily; so there 
was no need of looking for other explanation. The creation of the 
world, the origin of plants and of all species of animals and of man, 
the course of human history, the end of the world, the future life, all 
were explained by the minister. To the boy who happened to get 
interested in geology or astronomy the parent said, “Why bother your 
brains about it ?’—implying that everything that required any explana- 
tion was satisfactorily explained in the Bible. The emphasis was 
on attention to the day’s work and a child who was given to 
having his nose in a book was a sore trial. For a person of such 
tastes there was no leisure and no privacy in the house. There was 


148 RURAL HERITAGE 


no sympathy for him, either, if he came to believe anything about 
creation, or the course of history, or the future life that was contrary 
to sound doctrine. Religious doubt was regarded as not only a perilous 
state but also as disloyal to the parental teaching and disloyal to God. 
At the same time there were farmers who would read a sceptical book, 
possibly out of curiosity or because of the fascination of forbidden 
fruit, but avowedly to strengthen their belief, that is, as a sort of tilt 
with the devil, to test their power to maintain their faith in the face 
of the devil’s strongest arguments. More than one farmer kept Tom 
Paine’s Age of Reason in the house, locked up of course from the 
other members of the family. And children thus came to regard 
certain works as “awful” books which they must never look into. 

The lack of knowledge and the tendency to accept the ready theo- 
logical explanations of everything that might otherwise arouse a 
dangerous curiosity predisposed the population to the acceptance of 
plausible justifications of any custom or belief that happened to be 
doubted. Children and youths who had not yet acquired the theo- 
logical habit were naturally curious. They were either squelched 
with, “Oh, stop asking questions!’’ or the questioning tendency was 
suppressed in a manner more gratifying to the parent, that is, by 
giving plausible “reasons.” These secondary explanations required 
some little exercise of the imagination, a faculty otherwise suppressed 
by the overweening emphasis on action and conventionality. 

Reasoning by analogy was one of the conspicuous processes of these 
secondary explanations. Reasoning by analogy is prominent in theo- 
logical explanations, in which it is carried on endlessly. The church 
member who was interested in natural science never tired of showing 
the analogy between the story of the creation in the book of Genesis 
and the account as given by the scientist. So the Bible gained 
great prestige as supported by science and as antedating scientific dis- 
coveries, and the local scientist won prestige as a learned defender of 
dogma. 

Most rural communities had their sceptics, whose occasional argu- 
ments with the orthodox were occasions of general interest and were 
talked about throughout the neighbourhood. The argument usually 
began with the creation and seldom got further. The sceptic main- 
tained, on the analogy of the builder, that it could not be assumed that 
the universe was made as a builder makes a house because, if it were, 
the creator would have had to have stood outside of it and there is no 
outside. His opponent would not admit that there is no outside—to 


ATTITUDES OF INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 149 


be sure there may be an outside—nobody can know for nobody 
has ever come to the end of the inside. But granted there is no 
outside, the creator did not necessarily have to be on the outside. The 
processes of growth are from the inside. Take the crops in the 
spring, what makes them grow? But the sceptic was a lawyer and 
this mysticism of the farmer did not appeal to him. “What makes 
them grow? Natural law, of course. Nothing else.” 

“Tt does, hey! Well, if law makes things grow, we'll have to call 
on you lawyers the next dry spell.” 

If ever they got beyond the creation to the future life, there again 
reasoning was by analogy. The lawyer challenged his opponent to 
show how there could be “a place big enough to hold all the spirits.” 

More common than justification of beliefs by reasoning by analogy 
were justifications by quoting Scripture. The minister’s method was 
to take a text and then lead back to it again and again as authority 
for all the ideas of his sermon. The more fertile he was in applying 
his text the more he was admired. “I never knew a man who could 
get so much out of a text” was the way the admiration was sometimes 
expressed. He quoted Scripture liberally throughout the sermon and 
the people were thereby accustomed to a far-fetched use of the Bible 
in support of any idea or way of believing they wanted to impress on 
others. For instance, a farmer liked to go off with his gun when he 
had a leisure hour but his wife did not approve of his shooting birds, 
not even blackbirds. He persisted. “But,” remarked the daughter, 
“when mother quoted Scripture to him he couldn’t say a thing.” She 
was more learned and clever in the use of Scripture than he but there 
were a few texts that served his interests and he used them without 
mercy when she resisted. 

Interest in doctrines and Scripture diminished after the first period 
and so there was less inclination to argue about doctrines and to quote 
Scripture. There was also less interest in the preaching and the other 
purely religious aspects of church services; the services came to have 
more aesthetic interest. For this reason churches which emphasized 
ceremonial gained on those that did not, and the latter tended to 
increase somewhat the ceremonial part of their services. What 
Thomas and Znaniecki say of the Polish peasant is true of the 
American farmer, particularly of the women: “Religious beliefs 
whose seriousness is lost or whose real sense is forgotten become 
aesthetic attitudes. Often while the religious attitude is still vital it 
is so mixed with aesthetic feeling that it is impossible to determine 


150 RURAL HERITAGE 


which is more important. Many religious songs are sung at home 
for the sake of aesthetic enjoyment... .”° Aesthetic feeling always 
has been somewhat associated with religious worship. ‘Dressing up” 
to go to church always has been the custom. Church people came 
to allow amusements on Sunday in which the aesthetic as contrasted 
with the active and noisy aspect predominated, as walking through 
the fields and woods or driving. This aesthetic aspect of religion be- 
came prominent in the church services during the second period and 
resulted in the expenditure of a good deal of money on church 
furnishings and music. Many members were frank to say they had 
ceased to have interest in doctrines but found in the service a good 
deal of aesthetic satisfaction. However, many of those who had 
ceased to believe the traditional system of theology continued to believe 
in, and to cultivate an intimate fellowship with a personal Saviour. 
This personal religion was found in the rural districts from the first 
and to it the next chapter is devoted. 


CHAPTER XVI 
ATTITUDES OF PERSONAL RELIGION 


NSTITUTIONAL religion tended to shape the religious ex- 
perience of all after one pattern. But there were individuals 
whose religion was distinctly a personal experience. In some 

churches one man or one woman stood head and shoulders above the 
rest as a “real Christian” and was so recognized not only by the 
other church members but also by the community at large. Some 
churches had several of these real Christians. Their daily walk and 
conversation were “of the spirit,” that is, expressed a love, forbear- 
ance, courage, patience, self-sacrifice that seemed so unusual as to be 
explained only by an unusual contact with the unseen. It was such a 
one who was called to visit the sick and distressed and to console the 
dying. 

Personal religion was the religion of people of an unusually sensi- 
tive and sympathetic disposition. The religion of some sects, as 
the Quakers, seemed to produce on unusual number of people of this 
Christian disposition. In all sects doubtless a much larger number of 
people had some experience of personal religion than was realized. 
The experience was not apt to be talked about. The unusually sensi- 
tive and sympathetic people got their stimulus to personal religion 
from impulses which the everyday life did little to satisfy. The hard 
life of the farmer was quite devoid of the finer satisfactions and the 
unusual man or woman must find them, if at all, in religious contem- 
plation. Among the rank and file the stimulus to personal religion 
came from the consciousness of unruly impulses that must be curbed. 
Most people were in some degree conscious of this need of religion. 
For they had strong impulses and, therefore, were apt to go to an 
extreme in satisfactions. While the normal condition of the well 
adjusted personality is one of moderate and balanced satisfactions, the 
prevailing condition of a hard-working rural population seems to be 
one of more or less unbalanced, impulsive behaviour with a tendency 
to go to extremes in satisfactions. Such a population has much work 
to do and often overworks, is very hungry and often overeats, is 

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152 RURAL HERITAGE 


eager for wealth and often is over-ambitious, is pugnacious and often 
gets into disputes with neighbours. Under the influence of this 
strenuous life children were impulsive and with difficulty were re- 
strained by prohibitions laid down by their elders. Children were 
told that they must be responsible in behaviour, that they must act 
according to conscience. ‘This trust in conscience implied that it was 
through conscience that one got divine guidance in the vexing problems 
of life. 

Consciences differed. There was the conscience which knew only 
the prevailing moral standards, and there was the conscience of the 
unusually sensitive person. The latter was more conscious of impul- 
siveness than the insensitive person, who was annoyed only when his 
impulses got him into trouble. So the sensitive person went back to 
the teachings of Christ and tried to square his life by those teachings. 
This personal religion was a means of producing balance. Sin was 
any extreme or unwise impulse and the religious attitude was a look- 
ing to a present Saviour for presence of mind to control impulse. So 
the emphasis was on humility—‘‘Not my will but thine be done.” 
This attitude put the individual into the proper attitude to his impul- 
sive selfi—what matters it anyway, what I want is really trivial com- 
pared with the joy of this spiritual relation with the unseen. Thus 
religion was a force that made for balance and tranquillity in the 
personal life and for considerateness and love of others. It smoothed 
out the distortions due to impulsiveness, and made it possible for 
impulses suppressed thereby to function normally. 

To be sure personal religion was sometimes used to sanction an 
undue suppression of normal impulses as well as to control extreme 
ones. Among agricultural populations the world over, the women 
particularly have suffered from suppression and have been more reli- 
gious than men. In our rural population the mother who felt that 
her sacrifices for the family were not appreciated found comfort and 
quiet joy in the thought that “God knows.” And her solicitude that 
the children should be saved was not merely that they might be saved 
from the punishment of the unsaved but that they might through 
their lives find the unfailing comfort and peace that she enjoyed. 
A mother could not say much on this aspect of religion to her children 
because they had not yet had the hard experiences that make men and 
women yearn for it. But she wanted them to become acquainted 
with God, that they might find Him when they needed Him. The 
saintly wife often went far beyond what was good for the other 


ATTITUDES OF PERSONAL RELIGION 153 


members of the family in her sacrifices for them. But circumstances 
often required suppression on the part of all. The attitude of self- 
restraint was pronounced and the hardships of life were such that 
even the strongest felt at times the need of “the everlasting arms.” 

While personal religion did function for the suppression of normal 
impulses, this should not blind us to its function of aiding in the control 
of extreme impulses. The appetite for drink, extreme and unwhole- 
some physical appetites of all kinds, hot-temper, greed in money- 
making and other extreme impulses were sometimes brought under 
control by personal religion. The change was initiated by religious 
conversion and the saved person continued to “grow in grace.” A 
man thus successful in controlling his extreme impulses through reli- 
gion was called “an overcomer.” This was the word most frequently 
used to designate a successful Christian. 

Personal religion was not entirely distinct from institutional. 
That minister had greatest power with his people who was most subtle 
in discerning their “‘trials,” that is, the impulses and fears they were 
trying to control, and whose sermons suggested the ideas that served 
these spiritual needs. Furthermore, it was in the atmosphere of 
church worship that the individual found inspiration to prevail over 
his or her lower self. Particularly was there inspiration in the 
‘prayers of an understanding minister. The minister who was “power- 
ful in prayer’ was the one who was himself an “overcomer’’ and was 
desperately in earnest and utterly unselfish on behalf of the spiritual 
uplift of his people. In so far as the church had leaders of this kind, 
institutional served the ends of personal religion. 


CHAPTER XVII 
ATTITUDES OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 


HILDREN were educated mainly in the home. More of the 
necessary preparation for life was derived from association 
with the father and mother than to-day and less from the 

schools. Most boys followed the vocation of the father and got their 
education by working with him. The girls expected to become wives 
of farmers and the mothers trained them to become good housekeepers. 
Among the reasons why a vocation tended to pass from parents to chil- 
dren was that a son accepted his father’s vocation as he did his political 
affliation, as a matter of course. The son was closely associated 
with his father from a little boy, so he was disposed to follow his 
father’s vocation and politics. Then, too, the education necessary in 
order to follow some other vocation was more difficult to get than 
to-day. Religious education, also, was given in the family. The 
reading of children was censored by the parents with a view to 
preventing their reading anything that would discredit religious doc- 
trine. Publishers took advantage of this and published books and 
periodicals that would appeal to parents as “Christian.” An old 
resident of our typical town said of her childhood: “My father was 
very careful to provide good reading for us. We took the Christian 
Repository of Knowledge, which contained much interesting and 
profitable information on all subjects.” 

The common school system had, before 1850, extended throughout 
the state. The school education was merely supplementary to that 
given in the home. Its purpose was limited to that of giving 
children such instruction in the rudiments as they needed to supple- 
ment their vocational training, also such training in character as 
incidentally resulted from school discipline. There were religious 
exercises in the school but religious instruction was avoided because 
of the jealousy between the different sects. It was difficult to make 
instruction by a sectarian schoolmaster seem non-sectarian. The 
schoolmaster must be a member of a church, or at least a regular at- 

154 


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ATTITUDES OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 155 


tendant at church. He must, above all, conform to the attitudes and 
beliefs of the community. He boarded round and thus was thought 
of as in a sense belonging to the household of each family. 

Education emphasized discipline above everything else. There are 
several reasons for this emphasis. First, in addition to the economic 
motive for enforcing obedience already described there was the 
parent’s natural impulse to force his or her ways of thinking on the 
child. This impulse is independent of the economic motive. It is 
found where children are no longer made to work but are indulged 
and brought up in luxury. It is due to the mental setness of parents. 
Harmonious association requires a degree of likeness of attitudes and 
beliefs, wherefore parents expect children to accept their own. 
Parents did not then, any more than now, seek to understand the child. 
They became impatient before the eternal “Why?” even when asked 
out of mere curiosity, and especially when asked in reply to an injunc- 
tion to do something. The attitude of the parent to the child was 
to make the child ‘mind’ and work hard, and the schoolmaster 
was enjoined to continue this discipline. Any teaching of the 
school that weakened the child’s inclination to accept a parental be- 
lief or way of doing was resented, so that teachers conformed to the 
attitudes and beliefs of the neighbourhood instead of attempting an 
intellectual training. Children must be moulded after the pattern of 
the neighbourhood attitudes and beliefs. 

A second reason for the emphasis on discipline in public education 
was the pugnacity of children, due to their active life from their 
earliest years and to the large families, which gave plenty of stimulus 
to quarreling. When they were thrown together in the school, the 
tendency to quarrel and fight received further stimulus. Many of the 
boys were older than those who attend school to-day and this en- 
couraged resistance of the teacher. Hence the emphasis on discipline. 
Said one old resident: ‘The best teacher was the teacher who could 
keep the best order.” Boys and girls must be taught to restrain 
their unruly impulses before they could become persistent workers and 
custom-observing citizens. The trustee enjoined the schoolmaster to 
“keep order whatever you do, and give ’em what knowledge you have 
time for after that’s done. Cuff ’em, thrash ’em—any way to keep 
order; but, whatever you do, don’t let ’em thrash you.” 

This rigorous parental and schoolmaster attitude was endorsed by 
the theological attitude of those days with its doctrine of original sin 
and the natural depravity of human nature. Children were naturally 


156 RURAL HERITAGE 


perverse and must be saved from their lower impulses by family and 
school discipline. 

The imparting of information was a secondary but important func- 
tion of education. As we have seen the purpose of education was 
to give the child the rudiments which it could not acquire at home. 
Also, as will be shown in Chapter XVIII, the farmer emphasized the 
need of training the habit of remembering because so much of the 
knowledge a man required in his practical activities was derived from 
the spoken word of another and not from books. Capacity to remem- 
ber was emphasized also because of the tendency to display knowledge 
and a good memory. Furthermore, much of what the people were 
interested in, for instance, the history of the neighbourhood, was 
oral tradition. An old lady who was well versed in this history stood 
high in the estimation of the neighbourhood. After listening to her 
narratives the neighbours would say, “What a wonderful memory 
she has!”? Another reason for the emphasis on memory was that the 
submissive memorizing of imposed tasks fitted in with the disciplin- 
ing attitude. Though the matter studied had little interest in itself, 
uninteresting studies were justified on the basis of their disciplinary 
value. It was said that irksome tasks strengthen the will; that boys 
and girls were to be made responsible men and women who could 
hold themselves to hard and uninteresting tasks by having others hold 
them to such tasks as children. The strengthening of concentration 
by associating interesting ideas with the task was little thought of, 
except as parents held that a child might occasionally be stimulated by 
promise of areward. But rewards were sparingly used. They were 
not in harmony with the attitude of compelling the child to do the 
task. So education centred on compelling the child submissively to 
memorize uninteresting information. The result of the uninteresting 
character of rural education was to make compulsion an essential factor 
in education. “Children have to be made to learn,” said the school- 
master. Those who could be driven by inspiring fear studied in order 
to avoid punishment. Those who could be stimulated by appealing 
to their pride learned the lessons for the sake of winning high marks 
and badges. Those not susceptible of such stimulation invited pun- 
ishment. 

The emphasis on discipline meant that essential among the social 
attitudes cultivated by education was self-restraint. On this the 
schoolmaster was particularly intent. Where he failed utterly was in 
arousing intellectual interest. There was occasionally a bright boy 


ATTITUDES OF PUBLIC EDUCATION 157 


who was his special pride. He became the inspiration of such a boy, 
who was determined to “get off the farm,’ and who found the en- 
couragement and advice of the schoolmaster invaluable. But the rank 
and file of pupils gave him little satisfaction. They balked at self- 
restraint and their repressed impulses found expression in forbidden 
pranks and the rod played a prominent part in education. One school- 
master reserved all the “lickings” of the week until “public day,” on 
Friday afternoon. Then after the speaking of pieces came the “lick- 
ings.” 

In spite of this disciplinary aspect of public education, there was 
a good deal that was pleasant about it. Though the schoolmaster did 
not believe in self-expression, the children did, as the pranks during 
school hours and the games and fights at recess proved. The school 
room was well filled with children as compared with the quiet few 
found there to-day. The school was the neighbourhood centre in 
which were held the spelling matches and debates and the singing 
schools for old as well as young. A live teacher encouraged debates 
and spelling matches between schools of different neighbourhoods. 

The early attitudes of public education continue to the present day. 
The tasks still are uninteresting though the means of stimulating pupils 
to learn have changed somewhat. The rod is less used and rewards 
are more in evidence. The rod is most effective with the timid child, 
while rewards appeal to the few who have some chance of winning 
the honours. That is, the ones most stimulated are those whom it 
is least necessary to stimulate; or they are the timid children who 
are afraid to appear indifferent. This is one explanation of the fact 
that the best pupils according to the artificial scholastic standards often 
do not make the most successful men and women. Fear does not 
make a successful man or woman, though it may incite a boy or 
girl to study. Nor does a merely good memory and a capacity to 
excel in passing examinations guarantee success. One sometimes hears 
men declare that the boys who were best in their school have not been 
very successful men. Allowing for their rather crude conception of 
success, their contention often seems borne out by the facts; and the 
explanation seems to be in their crude conception of best pupil. He 
was best only according to the standards of an artificial system of 
education. 

The rural population is ceasing to be satisfied with this traditional 
system of education. The intelligent farmer says to his boy, “I 
didn’t have an opportunity for an education and I want to give you 


158 RURAL HERITAGE 


one.’’ The boy goes to the district school with the idea that it is the 
first step in his education. So he is less inclined to “cut up” in 
school than formerly. Furthermore, the farmer’s sense of independ- 
ence is less pronounced to-day than in the early days and this affects 
his children, The family feels it is a part of a larger world to which 
education is an avenue of approach. Along with this new attitude of 
the intelligent farmer, there is a new attitude on the part of the teacher. 
Teachers are better trained than formerly and seek to co-operate with 
intelligent families for the development of their children. So we 
have, on the one hand, a new co-operative attitude which is beginning to 
pervade some schools, and, on the other, the traditional attitudes of 
discipline and defiance or submissiveness. 


CHAPTER XVIII 
INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 


N understanding of the intellectual attitudes of the farmer re- 
quires that we visualize his economic situation. For most of 
his waking hours were spent in work. First, we must ap- 

preciate the fact that possession of a farm not only made him inde- 
pendent but also obliged him to use initiative. The farmer must de- 
cide day by day what he was to accomplish and then put through 
the day’s work. This situation developed two pronounced intellectual 
attitudes. First, it threw him on his own resources and compelled 
him to rely on his own wit and ingenuity when obstacles had to be 
overcome or something had to be made or mended. This developed 
what we call an inductive intellectual attitude, that is, a habit of notic- 
ing the relevant facts in the situation and drawing conclusions from 
those facts. He formulated inductively his idea of what was to be 
done. Then he did it. Second, because he worked so much alone 
or with his boys or hired men with whom he would not expect to dis- 
cuss anything, he had the habit of acting on his own ideas, without 
discussion with others. To be sure the farmer’s boys early developed 
a very active tendency to point out relevant facts and suggest what 
ought to be done in a situation. The farmer would often listen good- 
naturedly to a boy df seven. But this discussion with his boys did 
not extend to the larger problems of the farm—problems as to what 
acreage should be planted with this or that crop, when it should be 
planted, cultivated and the harvest begun. His solitary life strength- 
ened the tendency to act on his own ideas. This developed a deduc- 
tive intellectual attitude. This attitude prompted him to accept with- 
out question beliefs that had passed down from father to son, and 
thinking consisted of finding ideas to support the beliefs rather than 
in frank investigation to prove or disprove them. 

Let us consider first the inductive and then the deductive attitude. 
The inductive attitude was in evidence constantly. Farmers had to 
make investigations at every turn. The farmer had to go out and 
examine the condition of the ground to see when it was just ready 

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to plow, when it was just ready to drag, when it was ready to plant, 
when the crops were ready for this operation and that operation, when 
the grain was just ready to harvest. He had to watch his animals 
and feed and care for them in a way to keep them in good form. 
He had to study the symptoms of a sick animal and doctor it. Of 
course watching the ground and the crops consisted a good deal in de- 
ductively applying certain tests he had acquired from his father. But 
situations arose that required induction, as in the case of sick animals 
or of an unusual situation as a shortage of seed or a break-down of the 
wagon or machine. As an instance of a shortage of seed, when pota- 
toes were scarce and a farmer had not enough for seed and the table 
he had his wife peel potatoes with thick peelings and then he planted 
the peelings. This was a pure experiment. Again, when a machine 
broke down, the farmer had to mend it then and there. The work 
could not go on until it was mended. Under this stress of necessity 
even a dull boy showed an astonishing attention to the details of a 
machine, their relation and functions, and remarkable ingenuity in 
mending it. The boy with an unusual bent for experimentation had 
a good deal of opportunity to develop it on the farm. Possibly the 
remarkable development of the industrial arts in the United States in 
the nineteenth century was a good deal due to this rural attitude of 
practical ingenuity. Certain it is that very many of the improvements 
in crops and animals were made by plant and animal breeders who 
were farmers or were born and reared on the farm.* 

For most farmers, however, their mental alertness was narrowly 
circumscribed by the practical end in view. So it was with another im- 
portant mental tendency, constructiveness. Induction does not get one 
very far unless supplemented by constructive imagination. Among the 
rural population there was little imagination because the constructive 
tendency always served an extremely practical purpose. It was in- 
cidental to getting the day’s work done. The important manifestation 
of the constructive tendency was the farmer’s organization of the eco- 
nomic activities of his family. He planned the day’s work, adjusted 
the part each man, woman and child should do to that of the others, 
and instructed each in the use of animals and tools in order to accom- 
plish most with least effort. The action of the constructive tendency 
resembled domination somewhat because, in organizing and directing, 
the farmer’s intense interest in his project sometimes made him appear 
domineering. So the farmer of pronounced constructive capacity 
wanted tractable workmen. Above all he preferred working with men 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 161 


who understood him and valued his superior organizing power and 
made allowances for the peremptory tone of some of his directions. 
He “did not mean it” and wanted his directions to be taken in the 
real spirit in which they were given, that is, in the spirit of construc- 
tion instead of domination. 

The farmer showed little interest in ideas that did not have a prac- 
tical significance. He had little scientific curiosity. He soon wear- 
ied of a discussion that involved ideas he could not easily follow. 
Also he resented the thought of another’s knowing more than he did. 
Consequently farmers never got very far in understanding their eco- 
nomic relations with the outside world, or in the discussion of political 
issues. This lack of reflection was the weak point in the farmer’s 
intelligence. As soon as he got away from the obviously practical 
then the tendency was to reason deductively from phrases and be- 
liefs that had been handed down from generation to generation. 

But let us understand the reasons for his narrow intellectual horizon. 
First, we must think of a man who had twice as many things to do 
in a day as he could do well. He used his head to save his heels. He 
planned to make every move count in as many ways as possible. 
Thinking was a means to a maximum of doing. One who has not 
been in such a situation cannot realize how deadly such a habit of 
mind becomes to all reflection. The necessity of doing precludes all 
thought as to the reasonableness of the doing. The farmer hada farm 
on his hands; he had accepted the farmer’s life; a good deal of 
the time his work drove him; when he had been put behind by an 
unfavourable season he felt “driven to death.” Under these condi- 
tions thought merely serves as a tool to save the weary body. Second, 
the farmer’s isolation, while it gave an opportunity for reflection, gave 
him little to think about but his own ideas. It is this intellectual 
attitude that caused rules and proverbs to persist so long in the rural 
districts. Whenever a question came up as to the authority of a rule 
or proverb, even an intelligent farmer who no longer followed it 
would think that “There might be some truth in it.” And he would 
proceed to explain how this might be. That is, his tendency was to 
give it a degree of justification, though he no longer followed it. The 
tendency was to try to reconcile the new with the old, in order to jus- 
tify the old. Hence the persistence, with some change, of old reli- 
gious, political and other beliefs which new knowledge and new condi- 
tions discredited. 

The isolation of the farmer strengthened the tendency to prefer the 


162 RURAL HERITAGE 


familiar to the unfamiliar, and this accentuated his preference for 
familiar ways of thinking. Farmers who had a decided preference for 
the unfamiliar migrated west or to the cities and left the home-loving 
type on the farm. They loved the familiar faces, the old homestead, 
the old church. To be sure the farmer was curious about a stranger 
who drove along the road and wondered who he was and where he 
was going. He was hospitable, too, if a stranger needed shelter. At 
the same time he had a suspicion of strangers, a certain reaction 
against them just because they were strangers, unless a stranger could 
prove relationship with familiar people. This preference for the 
familiar affected his intellectual processes. He had a predilection for 
the familiar formulas and ways of doing. The minister stressed this 
attitude for the familiar and thereby strengthened the tendency to con- 
form to biblical texts as the familiar rule of faith and practice: 

A third condition that circumscribed the farmer’s intellectual hori- 
zon was the uncertainty of the weather. Because of this there was a 
sense of the futility of scientific knowledge so far as agriculture was 
concerned, an inclination not to plan much for the future, a feeling 
that man’s efforts were of small account as compared with the over- 
whelming importance of conditions beyond his control. So there was 
a reliance on signs and formulas and a disposition not to “bother your 
head” about your affairs but to be content with mere industrious work- 
ing in the conventional way. This attitude was accentuated by the in- 
dependence of the farmer and his satisfaction with a mere living, also 
by the confining nature of his occupation, which gave him no time to 
drop his work long enough to avail himself of opportunities for getting 
new ideas. 

The opportunities for getting new ideas were few enough even under 
the most favourable conditions. The farmer got his knowledge of 
farming as a boy from his father in the course of the daily work. He 
learned unconsciously in the course of doing. It was not apt to oc- 
cur to him that there could be better ways of doing. So he got into 
the habit of thinking that his father’s ways could not be improved. 
Political and religious beliefs were accepted in the same unconscious 
way. His attitude to contrary beliefs and ways of doing was more 
or less contemptuous. If he had doubts as to his own, pride would not 
let him acknowledge that they might not be entirely correct. 

Because of his isolation the farmer did not come into contact with 
city populations and had an aversion for city people. Young people 
had begun to emigrate from the rural districts to the cities in the first 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 163 


period but this had not yet become widespread enough to interest the 
farmers generally in relatives and friends in the cities. Farmers 
thought of city people as a distinct class. The working classes of cities 
were thought of as immeasurably lower than the farmers. The 
farmer contemptuously called the behaviour of the working masses 
in cities impulsive and ascribed most human ills to impulse. By 
impulsive he meant contrary to the tried ways of thinking and doing. 
This attitude has survived to the present day and the farmer thinks 
that impulse and subservience to demagogues, as he calls them, and sus- 
ceptibility to crowd emotions characterize the masses of working peo- 
ple in cities. He feels that there is an essential difference between 
his psychology and theirs and is not much inclined, therefore, to act 
with them politically, though reason might tell him that his interests 
and theirs require much the same governmental policies. 

New ideas may be acquired from informed people and from read- 
ing. The early farmer met few informed people. Reading for rec- 
reation was regarded as a useless occupation, except the reading of re- 
ligious books. In most families one would find no books except a 
few song books or a biography or a volume of poems or of humour 

that had been purchased of some persistent book agent. The farmer 

respected a well-read man, particularly if he was also a successful busi- 
ness man, but he himself was primarily a man of action; the tendency 
was to think lightly of a man who used inherited wealth merely to 
indulge bookish tastes. Farmers did not feel companionable with a 
well-informed man. They were uneasy in his presence and quick to 
suspect that his learning gave him a sense of superiority. Where there 
was none of this feeling still they did not know how to take him. 
Each was uncongenial to the other. If a person’s mind is preoccupied 
with work or if, for some other reason, he is not in the attitude of re- 
ceiving information, the tendency is to shun those who dispense it and 
the shunning tends to take the form of dislike, sometimes of ridicule, 
’ when the informed man is the subject of conversation. This attitude 
has survived in the rural population. 

New ideas may be acquired also, in the course of work and in rec- 
reation. How much did recreation serve this purpose? There were 
farmers who, in their leisure hours, were interested in new facts. 
They liked to have the cousin from the next county visit them and 
tell of the farming there. They liked particularly to hear about the 
great nation in which they lived. If a member of the community took 
a long journey, everybody wanted to call and see him on his return 


164, RURAL HERITAGE 


and hear him tell about it. But, in their social gatherings there was 
little that was informing or instructive. Farmers liked to propound 
riddles and tell stories. The belief in ghosts survived because it fur- 
nished a background for strange tales. So recreation did little toward 
imparting any useful information. One reason was that farmers had 
little intellectual interest in the economic side of life. They sowed, 
cultivated and reaped in the customary way. Their ways were the 
same but varied in minor points and the farmer’s pride prompted him 
to believe his way was best and to argue to that effect whenever the 
subject arose. So, when they met in a social way, farmers avoided 
these topics on which they would get serious, because they did not 
want to “raise an argument.” But, in spite of this attitude, argu- 
ments were frequent enough. However, the social hour was more 
pleasant when conversation took another turn. It was not uncommon 
to thresh over some event in the history of the neighbourhood, for 
instance, whether Hall Green, now dead these many years, was the 
first man to live on the Hall Green place or whether someone else first 
lived there and built that house. Even this was apt to lead to 
argument which might wax warm; but it was an insignificant point 
which challenged nobody’s standing as a farmer, as would methods of 
raising potatoes. It was much better to leave those live questions 
alone and to settle some historical question of the dim past, which, 
however, was never settled. 

As to the other occasion of receiving new ideas—in connection with 
work—when information had to be acquired to serve a practical pur- 
pose the farmer could get it. The type of mind that the farm fostered 
and contributed to business and the professions was not the bright, 
quick, eager mind but the dogged mind that, when it finds something 
that must be mastered, masters it and “gets it for good.” The 
farmer’s practical attitude stimulated his memory. He read not for 
the pleasure of reading but to remember what he read because he 
wanted to use the knowledge. Much of what he learned he acquired 
from other farmers and this learning was, of course, time lost unless 
he remembered what he heard. 

This habit of making it a point to remember he carried into oc- 
casions when he did not learn for immediate use. So he remembered a 
good deal of a lecture or a discourse he happened to hear. This habit 
of remembering was drilled into children. A child home from school 
who did not remember or had not learned something that the farmer 
thought he or she ought to know was severely condemned. Though 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 165 


the farmer condemned impractical knowledge, yet in seasons when 
they were not driven by their work, many farmers showed an interest 
in ideas that were not in themselves practical but were connected with 
their practical activities. They were interested in information about 
their animals, their poultry, their bees, about the history of their grains 
and vegetables. If a farmer failed to find in a book the particular 
information he wanted he had no further interest in the book. He 
was not apt to care for a background of thought that would give him 
an insight into his problems but rather for information that served 
his practical interest at the moment, or satisfied his curiosity about 
familiar things. This lack of interest in the broader aspects of their 
problems tended to make farmers men of poor judgment. 

The farmer’s lack of judgment was seen when he developed an in- 
terest in a certain new crop or a new variety of vegetables or a new 
breed of horses or cattle and went into this line of agriculture without 
due consideration of the market possibilities. What he was interested 
in was the particular stallion from which he was to breed horses or 
the particular variety of potatoes from which he was to raise the 
valuable seed potatoes. The more fascinated he was by the particu- 
lar animal or vegetable the more slender the data on market possibili- 
ties that were necessary to induce him to make the venture. Of 
course the habitual caution of the farmer, the impulse to keep 
what he had already saved, operated to prevent rash ventures. This 
also impeded judgment. The tendency was either to be rash in a ven- 
ture or, at the other extreme, over-cautious. The latter was more 
common. 

The farmer’s lack of judgment was evident, also, in his tendency to 
emotional judgments in his relations with other people. For instance, 
suppose a storekeeper lowered his price on a certain article owing 
to another store selling it at a lower price. The farmer was exas- 
perated to think that the storekeeper whom he had thought was sell- 
ing as low as possible, could afford to lower his price when competi- 
tion compelled him to. He was angry at the storekeeper for having 
got more money out of him than he ought to all these years. Also, 
because he thought himself clever in business dealings, he was a little 
crestfallen to think that the storekeeper had got the best of him. 
So he denounced him in unmeasured terms. This was in the fore- 
noon, in town. Then as he jogged home he thought it all over. 
He remembered a time when this storekeeper did him a good turn— 
took his eggs when he already had more eggs than he could sell and 


166 RURAL HERITAGE 


allowed him the regular price. He did not have to take his eggs 
back home. So by the time he got home he was thinking that the 
storekeeper had after all been fair with him. Now this tendency 
to snap judgments about people seems to have been due to his lack of 
experience with people, owing to which one impression produced its ef- 
fect before the effect was modified by association with recollections. 
If he was a man of some capacity for reflection and had had enough 
experiences of this change of mind, he recalled these experiences, 
and this recollection influenced him to suspend judgment. But, 
unfortunately, the tendency to unfair, unforgiving judgment of 
others was widespread. Particularly was this true of judgments 
of foreigners of a nationality or a sect that was disliked and the 
result was a tendency to fanaticism. 

The farmer lacked the power of reflection required for good judg- 
ment. His main interest was in getting things done. This made him 
narrow-minded and averse to considering another’s point of view. 
In directing the work of the family his attitude was, “I won’t argue 
the point. Go ahead and do as I direct.” Outside the family his 
attitude was to accord every man a right to a similar position of 
authority in his own family and to a similar liberty to have his own 
opinions in his relations with neighbours. The result was a general 
averseness to giving serious consideration to another’s point of view. 

The assertiveness of farmers took the form, among others, of 
pride in their own opinions. This expressed itself in two pronounced 
attitudes, an averseness to admitting that one was mistaken and a 
tendency to argue. As to the first, admitting that one was mistaken 
was an admission of inferiority in judgment, hence the averseness to 
it. The man who did admit a mistake was thought to be very un- 
usual and was highly regarded. Nevertheless the prevailing attitude 
was to the contrary. The farmer’s pride in his own judgment some- 
times cost him something. For instance, a farmer invested some money 
in worthless stock. A friend pointed out that it was worthless and 
volunteered to write the owner of the factory upbraiding him for sell- 
ing the stock to his friend and demanding that he pay back the money 
and take the stock. To his surprise the factory owner reluctantly 
consented to do so. To his greater surprise the farmer balked at the 
transaction. His pride would not let him admit that his judgment 
had been at fault. He had from the first opposed his friend’s efforts 
on his behalf. He kept his stock and never got any dividends; thus 
he paid for the satisfaction of his pride, 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 167 


The tendency to argue was due to the intellectual satisfaction in- 
volved, among a people who had few opportunities for mental exer- 
cise, and also to the prevailing averseness to admitting that one was 
mistaken. The farmer would not argue with his children. But he 
would lean on his hoe and tell his neighbour how he planted and 
cultivated this crop or that, with the attitude of one who did not ex- 
pect his ideas to be questioned ; and, if questioned, an argument was apt 
to result. The farmer would go to any length to make it appear that 
he was right. He declared his opinion with emotional intensity and 
regarded his personal honour as involved in maintaining it. He might 
acknowledge the contrary opinion to be right but held his own to 
be right also. He would listen good-naturedly to an opponent and 
then would use every available idea of his opponent’s argument to 
support his own. In his acceptance of the premises of argument he 
was led not by an earnest intent on their truth but by their plausibility 
or by his appreciation of the author of them, or by their antiquity 
or general acceptance. 

A tendency to argue was characteristic not only of farmers but 
also of men in other occupations. The files of rural papers of the 
early days contain controversial letters, columns long, on political and 
religious questions, which abound in rhetorical flourishes, figures of 
speech and extreme statements suggested by the antagonistic attitude 
of the writer. The clergyman as well as the editor was argumentative. 
In his discourse he reasoned deductively, associated with his doctrine 
all possible prestige ideas, and made the opposing ideas seem con- 
temptible by contemptible associations. Sometimes he did not hesitate 
to call sponsors of opposing ideas contemptible names. The keenness 
of his reasoning came from the impulse to close every avenue of es- 
cape from the ideas he was trying to impress. This cocksureness, this 
aggressiveness made the sermon interesting to the farmer who was 
himself more or less that kind of a man; he accepted the premises of 
the preacher and so moved along with his thought with a right good 
will, as the latter dominated the imaginary unbeliever. Dogmas were 
the clergyman’s premises of reasoning and any question of the day 
gained an added interest as soon as it was seen to have some relation to 
dogma, for instance, the slavery question as soon as the argument took 
the form of attempting to prove whether slavery was scriptural or un- 
scriptural.2 As the farmer had fixed ways of doing, as premises for 
argument as to the superiority of his ways, so the clergyman had fixed 
ways of thinking—dogmas—as premises for argument as to the truth 


168 RURAL HERITAGE 


of his ways. So the manner of life of the farmer supported the minis- 
ter’s way of thinking and the minister’s way of thinking supported the 
farmer’s adherence to custom. In addition to other reasons for the 
farmer’s interest in religion there was, at least in the more intellectual 
type of farmer, this enjoyment of the argumentative discourse of the 
clergyman. 

This prevalence of deductive thinking and argument was, in the 
last analysis, a result of the farmer’s economic situation as an isolated 
worker. He was accustomed to doing things according to rule. 
Planting, cultivating, harvesting, the care of animals, all were done 
according to rule. The thinking of the farmer generally was by means 
of formulas. For instance, he frequently used the formula, 
“One man’s gain is another man’s loss,” to explain economic rela- 
tions. He saw that the buyer, when buying his produce gained by 
buying at a low price and the farmer lost; the farmer gained by sell- 
ing at a high price and the buyer lost. In hiring a man the farmer 
gained by paying a low wage and the man lost; when the man could 
demand a high wage, the farmer lost. This relation of one-man’s- 
gain-another-man’s-loss he projected into that mesh of economic rela- 
tions which he did not understand, those of the merchant, the manu- 
facturer, the banker and concluded that whenever one man gained an- 
other lost, and that business men generally profited a good deal at the 
expense of the farmer. Another formula that was much used was 
“Whatever is to be will be.” This functioned much like the formula 
“It is God’s will” and was used by farmers who were not very reli- 
gious when resignation was required and by all farmers for bad luck 
in situations in which God could not be supposed to be interested. It 
was used with reference to any bad luck whatever—when the farmer 
broke his leg, when a valued horse died. By the resignation suggested 
by the formula he escaped worrying over the inevitable. By it also 
he escaped the necessity of inquiring into the real causes of what had 
happened, whereby he might have acquired knowledge that would have 
been of use in the future. 

The farmer acquired a variety of rules and Femulaas in the course 
of his vocational education. In the community wise sayings passed 
from mouth to mouth. A farmer, in conversation, would quote what 
some highly respected man of the past had said, with the remark, “I 
never forgot that.’ The rules, formulas and wise sayings were un- 
critically accepted and had much the same meaning generation after 
generation. This set of beliefs gave the farmer’s character a posi- 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 169 


tiveness of which he was conscious, on which he prided himself, and 
which caused him to laugh at a man who was inclined to be uncertain 
as to what he thought about this or that. 

Reliance on formulas is characteristic of an active people and is 
adaptive as long as the conditions which produced the formulas do 
not change. On the other hand changing conditions may be obscured 
by a formula for it is, after all, a substitute for a critical attitude to a 
situation. It is a convenient means of escape from problems. Now 
use of formulas is a mental habit that is common among agricultural 
peoples the world over. It is everywhere the cornerstone of the con- 
servative mind. It seems probable that one reason for the prevalence 
of this process in the thinking of the American people to-day is the 
fact that, until recently, so large a proportion of our population were 
rural. This rural attitude passed into American life generally and it 
was strengthened because it characterized also the thinking of two pro- 
fessional groups of great prestige, lawyers and clergymen. 

The farmer’s power of action and his closely knit body of beliefs 
made him a man of conviction. He was not content with merely 
believing something. The tendency was to act according to belief. 
He both acquired this trait from the culture of the time and de- 
veloped mental habits that would accentuate it. Thus it was that, if 
he had any intellectual power at all, he trained himself to clear think- 
ing. For clearness in thinking strengthens conviction. He formu- 
lated his ideas with a view to making them clear and convincing, and 
thus conducive to action. His economic position favoured fidelity to 
conviction. He did not have to consider that his ideas might be dis- 
approved of by a landlord or might reach the ear of an employer. 
A man who “didn’t dare say what he thought” was put in the same 
category with the man who did not keep his word. The increasing 
dependence of modern life and its suggestibility to the opinions of men 
of prestige and to the press is weakening this independence in thought 
and strength of conviction. 

This strength of conviction in the young man of unusual capacity 
who went from the farm into the law or the ministry showed itself 
in the “power of conviction” that characterized the leaders of those 
times. When Abraham Lincoln declared at the flag-raising ceremony 
at’ Independence Hall, Philadelphia, that “I have said nothing but 
what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the will of Almighty God, 
to die by,” he expressed an attitude that gave men confidence in him. 
The impulse of leaders was for that careful thinking that gave them 


170 RURAL HERITAGE 


a telling strength of conviction and that enabled them to clarify the 
minds of others and so convince others of the truth of their opinions. 
The attitude for frankness in thought and expression caused a 
hearty contempt for individuals who were timid about expressing their 
beliefs and an aversion for organizations that maintained secrecy as 
to their principles and practices. The anti-masonic craze, which 
started with the disappearance and supposed murder of Morgan, who 
undertook to publish the secrets of the Masonic order, swept the state. 
Farmers declared that “it was a shame that, in a free country, a 
man should be prevented from saying what he pleased.” Many 
churches passed resolutions excluding Masons from membership and 
Masonic lodges were forced to suspend their meetings for a time. 

While there was a strong sentiment for saying what one thought and 
permitting others to do the same, one was not supposed to think what 
was contrary to essential religious, political or economic beliefs. If 
one had atheistic or anarchistic or socialistic opinions he was expected 
to keep them to himself. Even outspoken abolitionists were long 
frowned on. The minister who delivered an abolition sermon in 
which he was vehement in his arguments against those who maintained 
that the Bible supported slavery was apt to stir ill-feeling. The atti- 
tude of those who opposed slavery was that it is wrong for one person 
to own another. But what’s the use of talking about it; leave it alone 
and it will die out. Thus the attitude for freedom of thought and 
frankness in expression appeared more pronounced than it really was. 
Where men do not differ radically, because nobody questions the 
premises that all accept, there appears to be a good degree of free 
speech and tolerance. On the other hand, in these latter years when 
premises begin to be questioned and men begin to differ fundamentally, 
there may appear to be less freedom of speech generally and a stronger 
tendency to intolerance, simply because of the intolerant attitude of 
the shallow-minded toward many people who are really thinking more 
freely and thoroughly. 

The farmer’s physical and mental isolation fostered an attitude of 
reserve. He was not inclined to discuss his opinions with others. 
His reserve caused him to keep to himself much more than men 
generally do. It was a common saying that “There are two things a 
farmer never tells—how much money he has and which way he voted.” 
Most men keep these matters to themselves. The farmer was close- 
mouthed generally and this habit of reticence often was a cause of 
extreme annoyance to his family when they were eager to know which 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 171 


way his mind was tending in matters that were vital for their happi- 
ness. His reticence was due not only to the reserve that inevitably 
resulted from his isolation but also to the indecision due to his depend- 
ence on the uncertain weather and seasons. Because of his reticence 
the farmer distrusted a man who was inclined to talk about his private 
affairs. Such a man seemed to him to be lacking in sincerity, for he 
could not conceive of a man’s honestly disclosing his affairs. He 
thought of him as telling what would make a favourable impression 
and withholding what would not. As contrasted with this the farmer 
was reserved, sincere and direct in what he did say. 

The farmer’s reserve shut off from his ideas the vitalizing effect of 
free and frank discussion. His habit was to mull over his ideas by 
himself in a way to justify his opinions until those that had any 
emotional trend at all became obsessions. For this reason his aver- 
sions tended to be deep-seated. Hence the intense partisanship and 
sectarianism of many farmers, their fanatical dislike of certain for- 
eigners, their distrust of city people, of the working masses in cities 
and of the financial interests that centred there. The farmer was 
credulous along the lines of his prejudices and the clergyman or 
politician who understood these could move him mightily. 

This tendency to emotional opinions affected family relations rather 
unfortunately. Farmers of a certain temperament were apt to “get 
a grouch” in the family. When in this condition the farmer was apt 
to refuse to say what was the matter, when asked by his wife. This 
unreasonable attitude in turn developed ill-feeling in the wife, which 
proved to the husband that his grouch was justified. This tendency 
of the farmer was made an occasion of humour in the saying that the 
farmer had this advantage over the city man, that the latter had no 
place to go when he got a grouch while the farmer could always go 
out to the barn. Of course the situation is just the opposite. The 
city man can more easily find distractions to relieve his state of mind 
than can the farmer. The farmer of a certain temperament also was 
liable to obsessions of dislike toward neighbours. He was quick to 
imagine that a neighbour was taking advantage, and he was apt to 
“hold a grudge” against a neighbour. He was prone to think he 
had been wronged and to exaggerate the wrong done him. This was 
one reason for the tendency toward litigation to be described later.* 

The narrow interest in ideas and the tendency to become obsessed 
with particular ideas was characteristic of men in other occupations 
than farming. It was characteristic, as we have seen, of the preacher 


172 RURAL HERITAGE 


and.also of the newspaper editor. For instance, the files of the local 
paper of our typical town for 1825-35 contain no news, local or 
foreign. The columns are filled with long dissertations on theological 
subjects and with editorials on “perpetual motion,” the hobby of the 
editor. The active farmer, also, was interested in perpetual motion 
but not from the theoretical point of view. He was a good deal bored 
by the ideas of the editor and regretted that the paper did not give a 
little information about some event in which people were particularly 
interested, for instance, whether the cholera in a neighbouring city 
was abating. On the whole, however, social conditions were such that 
there was not the eagerness for news that later developed. The 
people of a community “knew all about each other so that they didn’t 
need any paper to tell them.’’ Furthermore, it was more difficult to 
gather news from other communities than in these days of good mail 
service, the telephone, the auto, and good roads. As soon as improve- 
ments in communication increased travelling and acquaintanceship, 
the desire for news increased and this began to be satisfied as soon as 
enterprising editors found it out. 

One other characteristic of the farmer’s thinking remains to be 
mentioned. In his adherence to beliefs he was moved more or less 
by his feelings. This was particularly true of religious beliefs. 
They were held as true because they gave “soul satisfaction.” The 
farmer needed encouragement and hopefulness in hard and discourag- 
ing situations. Religion was the supreme means whereby the farmer 
was made hopeful that a bad season would take a turn for the better 
or was made resigned to the inevitable. Not only economic situations 
but family troubles and bereavement begot a need of hopefulness. 
He enjoyed listening to sermons that gave him satisfaction in these 
situations. He was easily satisfied because he wanted to be. The 
ideas were held to be true because they were satisfying. Because the 
inductive attitude was almost wholly confined to practical matters, 
these satisfying associations of religious ideas were not subjected to 
criticism. The entire supernatural system was self-consistent as long 
as its essential ideas were supremely satisfying. Their satisfyingness 
caused them to be held as true regardless of anything to the contrary, 
and from them as essential principles, the minister could, by logical 
reasoning, make almost any of his deductions seem plausible. 

The active life and the intensely practical attitude of the farmer 
afforded little opportunity for aesthetic appreciation and enjoyment. 
All around him were the beauties of nature but he was too strenuous 


a 


INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDES 173 


to appreciate them. At least he was not conscious of this apprecia- 
tion, but it was more prominent in his subconscious life than he was 
aware of. One indication of this is the retrospective consciousness of 
young men born and brought up on the farm who later went to live in 
the city. There the beauties of the country seemed more alluring 
than when they were among them and they went back to them when- 
ever the opportunity came. Another attitude of the farmer of which 
the individual becomes clearly conscious by being deprived of oppor- 
tunity for its satisfaction is independence. The farm-bred boy who 
moved to the city complained that there one must dress and act just 
SO, as compared with the freedom of the country. But in the country 
there is comparatively little consciousness of this freedom. 

The farmer’s aesthetic appreciation was limited. In the rural dis- 
tricts as elsewhere there developed an aesthetic pose, particularly among 
the women. The farmer received good-naturedly the news that his 
daughter was progressing in her “new fangled music” or painting, but 
what he enjoyed was an old song well sung or a good sketch of a 
familiar scene. He also enjoyed “natural beauty,” as he called it. 
A sleek, finely formed animal, a red-cheeked girl, a beautifully grained 
piece of wood caught his eye. A spreading tree in the yard was his 
special pride. He would go a long way to see an exquisitely shaped 
racing horse. Most pleasing of all was the sight of his growing crops. 
After the hard years of clearing the land came the years of real 
production. The farmer enjoyed preparing a piece of virgin soil for 
the crop. Its dark, rich colour thrilled him. He enjoyed the sight of 
the long straight rows of green, the sound of the rustling corn, the 
feel of the hard ears as he gathered them. In the cultivation of his 
crop he cultivated in order that the field might “look nice” as well as 
for the sake of getting a good yield. 

The farmer’s intellectual attitudes on the whole adapted him to 
his environment. Adaptation called for a minimum of reflection. 
Consequently, when closer relations with the business world and the in- 
creasing effect of governmental policies on his prosperity resulted in 
a need of greater power of reflection, his fixed beliefs and reliance on 
formulas, his tendency to argue for his beliefs and formulas, even his 
power of conviction were less adaptive than formerly. But these in- 
tellectual attitudes persisted in spite of the new conditions, and this 
accounts for the backwardness of rural organization. 


CHAPTER XIX 
JURISTIC ATTITUDES 


EMOCRACY meant to the early farmer at least three 

things, personal liberty, social equality, and respect for law. 

The belief in personal liberty was strengthened by the 
farmer’s independent ownership of land and by his enterprise in the 
cultivation of it. It was strengthened also by recollections of Old 
World tyranny. In the Old World those in whom individual 
initiative was highly developed were thereby brought into conflict with 
the ruling class which would repress the initiative of the rising middle 
class. Hence the resistance of this ruling class by those who finally 
left the Old World and settled in the colonies. This attitude of 
resistance was voiced as the right of personal liberty and this assumed 
a variety of juristic aspects, as the right of the people to take up land, 
their right to determine what taxes they should pay, their right of free 
speech, their right to go into politics and aspire to any office, to profess 
any religion. These rights were quite generally given legal recogni- 
tion. 

Social equality meant that all were subject to the common lot of 
daily work, though some might be more successful in accumulating 
wealth than others. The idea was that accident of birth should not 
make a man superior to his fellows. His superiority should rest in his 
personal superiority as a worker. However the farmer stood for an 
unrestricted right of bequest and inheritance. He distrusted extreme 
economic inequality as subversive both of liberty and of social equality 
and, at the same time, stood for rights that made economic and social 
inequality inevitable. 

The third element in the conception of democracy we shall consider 
at some length. The juristic attitude of respect for law was an out- 
standing attitude in the early neighbourhood and it has remained 
fundamental in rural psychology to this day. It was maintained as 
an essential principle of democracy and as absolutely necessary if per- 
sonal liberty was to be maintained in a society of equals and an 
orderly freedom secured to all. The farmer understood that democ- 

174 


JURISTIC ATTITUDES 175 


racy was an experiment. He realized that ‘‘men are looking out for 
themselves first and last and all the time” and that human wilfulness 
has to be curbed. He had to curb it in his children and in himself. 
The farmer’s active, aggressive life made wilfulness pronounced. 
It caused much dissension in the community and the church. So he 
realized that if democracy was to endure there must be some restraint 
on human wilfulness. The law could be expected to exert this 
restraint only if there was a general respect for law such that the 
individual law-breaker would be summarily dealt with. Whenever the 
officers of the law were unable to cope with law-breakers, as with a 
gang of horse-thieves at bay in a swamp, the farmers proceeded to the 
spot and administered summary justice. 

The belief that law should be respected and enforced was due to the 
economic conditions that resulted in a high degree of economic equality 
and in an aggressive and self-willed pursuit of wealth. These con- 
ditions, as explained in Chapter XI, fostered also an attitude of 
rigorous self-restraint and this attitude was the tap-root of the 
demand for rigorous enforcement of law. Self-restraint was the 
essential characteristic of the austere type of farmer and it was this 
type that especially emphasized law enforcement. The attitude for 
law enforcement was, therefore, in part, one of the many expressions 
of the disposition of self-restraint. This was strengthened by the 
economic conditions of the time. The child acquired self-restraint 
from being made constantly to restrain himself or herself, and 
also from the daily example of the self-restraint of the parents in 
the midst of work, hardships, failure, disappointment and bereave- 
ment. The attitude became fundamental in character. The boy held 
himself to his work, gritted his teeth when he failed or was disap- 
pointed, spurned opportunities for a moment’s pleasure or ease, 
despised an easy-going and pleasure-loving neighbour, and felt a 
determined attitude against anybody who disregarded the law to satisfy 
his own pleasure. So the attitude for the rigorous enforcement of 
law was one expression of the disposition of self-restraint. One in 
whom this disposition was pronounced had an austere attitude toward 
those who lacked self-restraint, and wished them under fhe hand of the 
law. 

As a result of this emphasis on law enforcement, there was an undue 
reliance on mere law as a means of social welfare. Other attitudes 
contributed to this. One of these was the intellectual attitude of 
regard for rules and formulas described in Chapter XVIII. Adher- 


176 RURAL HERITAGE 


ence to rules and formulas was conspicuous in every phase of social 
organization. In rearing their children parents were guided by the 
rules and proverbs they had acquired from their elders. In his 
economic life the farmer relied on proverbs about the weather and on 
rules for doing things that had been handed down by his fathers. 
In his religious life he relied on the ritual, ceremonies and rules laid 
down by the church. It was this attitude that inclined the farmer to 
accept the sayings of Scripture about the proper relation of husband 
and wife, about divorce, about the proper relation of children to 
parents as rules that applied not only to the social conditions of those 
ancient times but also to all times and places. It was easy for the 
people thus dogmatically to apply Scripture because it was in harmony 
with their tendency to apply traditional rules generally in all their 
behaviour. Now this penchant for rules, which determined the domes- 
tic, economic and religious behaviour of the farmer, determined his 
political behaviour also, once the political relations of the new nation 
had become established. The farmer was inclined to quote the wise 
sayings of the revered leaders of his party, as if that settled the 
argument on any question. It determined also his juristic attitude. 
The farmer was inclined to rely on mere law. This attitude has 
passed into American life. Hence our first thought, in connection 
with a desired reform, is to get a law passed against the evil in mind 
and rely on the law. The farmer did not believe much in new laws. 
But he believed in enforcing the existing laws and in settling every 
difficulty by an appeal to law. As the father, in his predilection for 
the rules for rearing children handed from the past, did not consider 
the different personalities of his children in their upbringing, so the 
tendency was not to consider the social and economic conditions of 
those to whom a law was to be applied but to apply it rigidly in its 
traditional sense. Reliance on rules, proverbs, Scripture, wise say- 
ings, law—that was the attitude of those days. 

The rural attitude to law also had in it an element obviously not 
original in a society in which people make the laws and unmake them. 
This was a tendency to regard law as something unchangeable. This 
attitude of subservience to unchangeable law characterizes a state in 
which the laws are made for the people, not by them. But it was in 
line with some of the attitudes of the early rural population. One of 
these was the attitude developed in children by their parental train- 
ing. Parents took care to “stick to’ what they commanded, “for if 
I do not my children will not respect me.’ This attitude served to 


JURISTIC ATTITUDES 177 


prepare children to regard law as unchangeable. Also parents main- 
tained that children should “mind” without expecting any explanation 
as to the reason for a command. ‘Because I say so” was said to be 
sufficient reason; on that ground, all parental injunctions were of a 
like importance to children. Just so the emphasis on respect for law 
as command had a tendency to make all laws of like importance. 
Law as such must be enforced. This attitude to law also was in line 
with religious attitudes. There was in the attitude to law an element 
of awe; the power behind it was thought of as inexorable and the 
law-breaker’s fate as awful beyond anything though it might mean 
only jail for thirty days. This was due to the constant emphasis by 
the minister on law as the command of God and on the awfulness of 
God’s law. This ecclesiastical influence emphasized, also, the un- 
changeableness of law—“I am the Lord, I change not” was the text 
on this occasion. 

The prevailing adherence to custom tended to increase respect for 
law. In the second period changing behaviour in certain respects 
resulted in a weakening regard for certain customs, and this diminished 
regard for laws associated therewith. When customs thus discredited 
were fundamental there ensued a weakening of the general tendency 
to adhere to custom, and this weakened respect for law. This change 
became marked in the villages in the second and third periods but was 
less in evidence among the farmers. 

Along with the early attitude of respect for law there was a keen 
regard for personal liberty and a deep-seated fear of giving the state 
too much power. This was due to the prevailing aversion to the 
autocratic power of European states. At the same time the power 
of the state was by no means despised. It was because it was not that 
there was an attitude against giving the state the right to curtail per- 
sonal liberty except when it seemed absolutely necessary in order to 
restrain harmful wilfulness. The respect for the power of the state 
was an attitude inherited from the past and, as we saw in Chapter V, 
the weather attitudes of the farmer accentuated political subservience. 
This subservience to government was in proportion to the effect on 
the imagination of the consideration of its might. The state govern- 
ment was regarded as mighty but the federal government was felt to 
be an all-powerful, irresistible force to which, whether just or unjust, 
man must bow. As an instance of the attitude to state government, 
when, in constructing a road, the course of the road was so laid out as 
to injure a farmer’s property, though he felt keenly the injustice he 


178 RURAL HERITAGE 


was apt to submit without formal protest, though not without much 
complaining. “You can’t do anything against the state.” The atti- 
tude toward the federal government was still more abject. For 
instance, in case of some trifling interference with the mail the offence 
was discussed in awful whispers because it was an offence against the 
federal government and the punishment that might be expected terrified 
the mind. The government was not thought of as a body of officials 
created by the people but as some overwhelming authority against 
which, however arbitrary it might be, the individual had no redress. 
And, as a matter of fact, of course he had none.? 

Law in the early neighbourhood had a twofold function: It em- 
bodied restraints on human wilfulness which the community would 
enforce, and it was the means whereby the self-reliant farmer got his 
rights in a dispute over property. It was to law in its restraining 
function—to the criminal law—that the attitude of respect for law as 
such was principally directed. There was a difference in the farmer’s 
attitude to law in a criminal and in a civil case. In the former the 
law and the judge were objects of fearful regard. Extreme abhor- 
rence was felt for a person found guilty and he felt the overwhelming 
disgrace. In the latter the law and the judge were less objects of 
fearful regard. The judicial decision might be questioned and the 
beaten party might vow to work against the judge next election. In 
the eyes of the community the beaten party was not to be abhorred; 
he merely got the worst of it. 

The attitude to law affected the attitude to the judge. There was 
a strange admixture of awful regard for the judge as the exponent 
of criminal law and a matter-of-fact attitude to him as the means of 
getting justice done in a dispute over property. Because of the popular 
respect for the judge he had an excessive respect for himself. This 
was more true of a judge who was a lawyer than of one who was 
merely a farmer. The former was apt to assume the dominating, 
order-preserving attitude of an exponent of the criminal law rather 
than the common-sense attitude of an arbiter in disputes over property. 

Let us look, first, at the rural attitude to the criminal law. Then 
we shall consider the attitude to the law as a means of getting justice in 
disputes over property. Crimes were acts which were felt to be a 
menace to the community, but the penalty imposed, in so far as this 
was left to the discretion of the court, depended more on the degree 
of resentment felt because of the act than on the degree of punish- 


JURISTIC ATTITUDES 179 
ment that was necessary to stop the offence. Furthermore, the 
degree of resentment against a person because of an offence did 
not indicate the degree in which the act was a social menace. A 
man convicted of “assault and battery” was less abhorred than one 
convicted of petty theft. The pronounced pugnacity of the population 
inevitably resulted in occasional assaults while stealing was not in line 
with the prevailing habits. A petty theft was the chief topic of 
conversation for months after it occurred. A thief brought back 
to the scene of his crime for trial was viewed aghast from doors 
and windows and his crime was discussed in awful whispers. A 
thief never shook off the stigma attached to his name and his 
family were apt to be so grief-stricken that, even if not shunned by 
the neighbours, as they usually were, they voluntarily withdrew 
largely from social intercourse, and when they chanced to meet their 
neighbours, “didn’t dare look them in the face.”’ Now this difference 
between the feeling against one guilty of assault and one guilty of 
theft does not indicate the relative seriousness of the two offences. 
A poor, harmless thief, whose crime could not have had any dan- 
gerous influence because of the general lack of inclination to steal, 
was intensely abhorred while a roustabout, instead of being arrested, 
was allowed to swagger and intimidate the youth of the neighbour- 
hood until some day a farmer’s son, down from the hills, “threw him 
down like a sack of potatoes.” Quite often a man felt it to be dis- 
honourable and a confession of weakness to go to law against one 
who had assaulted him, The honourable way was to thrash him. 
Even the minister was sometimes forced to resort to his fists in order 
to maintain his prestige in the community.? 

The rare occurrence of theft in the American rural community is 
explained by the contrast with its frequency in the Russian rural com- 
munity. In the latter, “The explanation of the prevalence of petty 
thieving seems to lie in the survival of ideas originating in bondage. 
Under bondage the peasant had no legal right to any property. It 
was, therefore, difficult for him to conceive of any such right on the 
part of anyone else. Moreover, the community of occupancy of land 
and the community of use of agricultural instruments—although not 
invariable or universal—bred in the peasant a certain indifference to 
property considered as an individual possession.” * In Poland, also, 
stealing among peasants is associated with landlordism.t In the 
United States, on the other hand, individual ownership strengthened 


180 RURAL HERITAGE 


respect for others’ property rights. Few individual fortunes had then 
become so large as to cause the suspicion that they could not have 
been made honestly. 

Because theft was rare it was the more abhorred as an unusual 
violation of customary behaviour. This motive in the abhorrence of 
the law-breaker must not be lost sight of. Very unusual breaches 
of custom, also, were abhorred. Some of these stirred as much ab- 
horrence as violations of law. For instance, a wife who left her 
husband and little children was intensely abhorred and talked about for 
weeks. The abhorrence took no account of the circumstances in the 
case, which generally were little known. It was assumed that any 
woman who could leave little children, regardless of the difficulty of 
living with her husband, was little short of a monster. In addition 
to compassion for the children there was indignation because of this 
very unusual violation of certain highly esteemed attitudes, particu- 
larly that of loyalty of wife to husband. 

Getting drunk was abhorred because of the emphasis in the rural 
community on efficient and virile manhood, and the drunken man was 
the negation of everything manly or even human. So far to forget 
one’s manhood as to get drunk was felt to deserve the extremest con- 
tempt. The farmer expressed this sense of shame when he said, “I 
would rather see my boy dead than lying drunk beside the road.” In 
the first generation liquor drinking in moderation was quite prevalent 
but drunkenness was rare. The settlers were not men of that kind. 
But, when the second generation was coming to maturity, excessive 
drinking increased alarmingly. This was due to the increase of 
saloons and to the fact that farmers now had more leisure in winter 
because the land had been cleared. The energetic farmer worked in 
the woods throughout the winter but there were many who were not 
industrious enough for this and life was monotonous without the cus- 
tomary activity. The monotony and the digestive disorders occa- 
sioned by heavy eating in idleness caused an appetite for liquor. 
Labourers in cities ‘show the same tendency toward increased liquor 
drinking when out of work. In the rural districts drunkenness with 
its accompanying worries and indecencies increased, and the reaction 
came in the form of the Washingtonian total abstinence crusade of 
1844. One of the results was legislation against public intoxication. 
The enforcement of the law depended, however, on how the public 
happened to feel about drunkenness at the time and on who was 
intoxicated. 


JURISTIC ATTITUDES 181 


We turn now to the second function of law. It was that whereby 
the self-reliant farmer got his rights in a dispute over property. In 
our typical town, as in other rural communities of the state, lawsuits 
“came off” in the town and the county courts. Interest in suits in 
the county court may be inferred from the remark of an old resident 
of our typical town: “So many went to court in the fall that there 
wa'n’t enough left to do the chores.”” Of lawsuits held in the town 
courts it was said, “We had a lawsuit about every other day, and, 
before it was over, often the contending parties, the witnesses and the 
judge were pretty drunk.” This frequency of lawsuits obtained 
throughout the state but the records are very fragmentary. In no 
rural town in which I have studied this subject are there complete 
records of the town courts throughout the entire history of the town. 
For instance, take the records of our typical town. There is not a 
complete record for any one year of the cases tried in town courts. 
For the years 1828-30 one of three dockets is extant, and two dockets 
for 1842-45. No criminal case is recorded in the docket of 1828- 
30 and only two criminal cases in those of 1842-45. Of civil cases the 
docket of 1828-30 records 289, those of 1842-45, 196. That is, 
one of the three earlier dockets records twice as many cases as two of 
the later ones, and this while the population of the town, in 1825, was 
only eighty-seven percent of what it was in 1845. It would appear, 
therefore, that, in our typical town, “lawing it” decreased between the 
two periods. This decrease seems to have continued after 1845, and, 
during the second period, lawsuits were very rare. Criminal cases, 
on the contrary, increased but these were largely cases of non-resident 
tramps arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy. This decrease in 
litigation can be traced in other parts of the state. 

The disputes over property in the early days were carried into the 
ecclesiastical courts and caused a good deal of wrangling among church 
members over secular affairs. This resulted in factional feuds and, 
sometimes, in breaking up the church. This aspect of juristic activity 
can best be described by adverting to our typical town. The Baptist 
Church was no sooner instituted in 1801 than dissensions arose and 
conflicts became so bitter that in 1807 the church was broken up. In 
1814 it was reorganized with the following manifesto: ‘The Baptist 
Church of Christ . . . having waded in. . . trials and difficulties, 
and their travel as a church having ceased, it pleased God to send 
Elder John Upfold amongst us. A conference was held. . . . The 
brethren present agreed to leave off all their old difficulties and travel 


182 RURAL HERITAGE 


forward .. . without bringing any of their former troubles with 
them.” The services of the church were resumed but in less than two 
months the brethren restarted the “trials and difficulties” by “stating 
things which the church had convenanted not to bring into the church 
when they took up their travel.” Then follow amusing accounts of 
the trials of recreant members by the church setting as an ecclesiastical 
court. From 1801 to 1855, one hundred and one trials are recorded, 
in seventy-four of which the defendant was excluded from the church. 
The number of trials and exclusions probably was much greater than 
this as it is evident from the imperfect records that not all trials were 
recorded. Of the seventy-six cases in which the cause of action is 
recorded, the charge was, in four cases, fornication or adultery; in 
thirteen, dishonesty or swearing or intoxication or telling a falsehood 
or desertion of husband; in two, attending a turkey-shoot; in six, re- 
fusing to leave the Masonic Society during the anti-masonic crusade; 
while, in fifty-one, the charge was “not going to meeting,” or “breach 
of the covenant,” or “breach of the Sabbath.”’ Several charges under 
the latter head sound childish. For instance, one man was accused of 
“strolling his fields and mending his fence” on Sunday and his apology 
was voted “not satisfactory.” He offered four other apologies on 
successive occasions, each being voted not satisfactory, and finally he 
was excluded. Each successive apology split the church more and 
more into factions, some regarding it as sufficient, others as not so. 
Thus the quarreling went on until 1855, after which no trials are 
recorded. The largest number of trials in any one decade came in 
1836-45. After that date trials became rare and people were excluded 
from membership only for such offences as drunkenness, immorality 
and “ceasing to walk with the church.” The Congregational Church 
was torn with dissensions during its entire history; the record book 
was “so full of disgraceful quarrels that about 1830 some young 
people secretly gained possession of the records and burned them.” In 
1823 certain members, in despair of ever again seeing unanimity 
restored, withdrew and formed a Presbyterian Church with the hope 
that the more centralized form of government would serve to over- 
awe contending factions in the local church. The Presbyterian rec- 
ords are not complete enough to convey an idea of the extent of 
conflict in that church. Judging from the testimony of old residents, 
however, quarrels were frequent enough, though they always stopped 
short of schism. Before the middle of the century these disputes 


JURISTIC ATTITUDES 183 


between church members had greatly diminished and, in the second 
period, had ceased entirely. 

The important point about these conflicts is that very many of them 
originally arose out of disputes over “secular” matters, usually over 
property. Thus, “breach of covenant” and “not going to meeting” 
are recorded as causes of expulsion when the original cause arose out 
of a dispute over property. For instance, two brothers quarrelled 
over the position of a line fence. One stayed away from meeting 
because the other was upheld by the church, and the former was ex- 
pelled for “not going to meeting.” 

There are several reasons for the excessive litigation in the early 
period? In rural populations all over the world whenever conditions 
so change as to stimulate aggressive self-seeking we find an increase 
in litigation. A period of acquisition of land, either of land in a new 
country or of land in an old country formerly owned by landlords, 
shows an increase in litigation and in drunkenness. This followed the 
emancipation of the serfs in Russia.® In America the attitude of 
the settler was to look out for himself aggressively, to help another 
on occasion but also to resist any self-seeking on the part of a 
_ neighbour at his expense. The prevalence of liquor drinking did not 
tend to sooth the prevailing aggressiveness. This was increased by 
the inevitable confusion in a new country. For instance, the lack of 
traditional boundary lines made disputes over property very common. 
In the laying out of highways there were disputes over their location. 
After 1845 these causes of action no longer existed. Quarrels over 
line fences ceased because the position of line fences had become tradi- 
tional and unquestioned; and the highways had been laid out. Then, 
too, farmers gradually became less aggressively self-seeking. The 
struggle for existence was less intense. Isolation was less complete 
and there was a gradual broadening of interests, which gave people 
something to think about besides injuries imagined or real. Also the 
farmer felt less independent than at first. In the early days he pro- 
duced about everything the family needed and, if he was so disposed, 
he could be at sword’s points with the rest of the world without 
seriously impairing his prosperity. Although this state of independ- 
ence is the chief advantage cited to-day when comparing farming with 
other vocations, yet the farmer is no longer independent. The influ- 
ence of his growing dependence upon the decrease in litigation is 
evident from the following remark of a prosperous farmer who was a 


184 RURAL HERITAGE 


life-long resident of our typical town, as was his father before him: 
“T make it a point never to have any trouble with my tenants. If I 
don’t like a tenant I make him think I like him until his time is out 
and then J let him go. If I should have trouble with my tenants 
people would say, ‘He is a hard man; he got his riches by grinding 
the face of the poor.’ This would be unpleasant of itself, involving 
the accusation that I am an oppressor of the weak, and it would make 
it difficult for me to secure tenants for my farms.’’ Thus the in- 
creasing dependence of the farmer on others’ goodwill served to dis- 
courage litigation. As lawsuits diminished and became very unusual, 
public opinion more and more disapproved of them. 


CHAPTER XX 


POLITICAL ATTITUDES 


HE political activity of the neighbourhood involved the people 
who were especially interested in politics and second, the mass 
of voters who had no interest except around election time. 

Those specially interested included, first, the tavern keepers who, being 
in the line of travel, were well informed on political gossip. Also, the 
tavern was a social centre of the neighbourhood and this put the 
keeper in a position to exert political influence. So the tavern, and in 
villages and cities the saloon, began to play its part in politics. An- 
other interested class included those who aspired to hold office. The 
industrious farmer was averse to taking any part in politics.. For this 
reason the office had to seek the man if it required a man of unusual 
integrity and sound judgment as did that of supervisor and assessor 
and justice of the peace. Capable farmers generally could be per- 
suaded to run for these offices because they could so arrange their 
political duties as not much to interfere with their farm work. 
Psychologically distinct from this class of officials was the political 
animal, who was apt to be less conspicuous for the qualities that mark 
a successful farmer than for those athletic and social qualities which 
characterize the politician. These men won such offices as town 
constable and county sheriff and, too often, offices that required more 
capable men. Still another class interested in politics included those 
who were ambitious for unusual political distinction—the lawyer of 
recognized ability as a public speaker, the wealthy miller or distiller 
who, because of his business relations with a wide circle of farmers 
and because of his wealth and social influence, had a substantial good- 
will that could be capitalized politically. 

The farmers of the early days had a keener interest in local politics 
than later because of the practical things that they as a community 
needed to have done, for instance, the preservation of order among 
a frontier population and the laying out of highways. In local, and 
especially in state and national politics, farmers were intensely partisan. 


However, other attitudes than partisanship played a part. One of 
185 


186 RURAL HERITAGE 


these was local pride. A community was stirred by the prospect of 
having one of its citizens in the state legislature. Party lines were 
broken to give the community candidate a “complimentary vote.” 
Another attitude both in local and state politics was personal allegiance. 
Town officers were chosen not only because of confidence in their 
ability to get things done but also because of their personal impressive- 
ness. The town officers most readily and favourably recalled by old 
residents were “great big men,” good natured, unassuming and holding 
their power in reserve but able on occasion to display it to advantage, 
particularly on election day and town meeting day. Personal power 
did not make a man popular, however, if he had a domineering dis- 
position. The “big feeling’ man was “taken down” at every oppor- 
tunity. No aspirant for office “killed” himself so quickly as the man 
who, in canvassing, showed a pompous disposition. The fear and 
distrust of this disposition caused a general inclination to limit an 
office-holder’s power and to limit his tenure also. This led, for in- 
stance, to the policy of some school districts of not allowing the same 
person to fill the office of school trustee for several consecutive terms 
lest he might thereby acquire undue prestige and become domineering. 
“Let the good thing go round” was the watchword both in school 
and town politics. Nothing called out a full school meeting more 
surely than the demand of a trustee for re-election whom it was time 
to put out. This local attitude was transferred to state and national 
politics and favourably inclined the farmers to the doctrine of rota- 
tion in office on which the spoils system was justified. 

The partisan attitude and the particular party affiliation passed 
down from father to son. A man got his politics as he got his table 
manners and sectarian beliefs. And just as a person who was drawn 
away from his own church by an attraction in another was despised, 
so was the voter who was “always whipping around” and voting for 
one party one year and another the next. The independent voter 
was laughed at. What did his independent ideas amount to! The 
only way to count in politics was to be a member of a party. 

Partisanship meant loyalty to party. Any enthusiastic loyalty in- 
volves a relation to persons. So sectarian loyalty involved loyalty 
to the local clergyman and to the great historical leaders of the sect; 
and partisan loyalty involved loyalty to the local leaders and to the great 
leaders of the party. This loyalty to leaders had a variety of emo- 
tional outlets. Songs and parades were more in evidence in the 
political campaigns of those days than to-day. Some of the behaviour 


a 


POLITICAL ATTITUDES 187 


was whimsical, For instance, “The Whigs used ash for their liberty 
poles in honour of Henry Clay of Ashland, I suppose; while the 
Democrats used hickory in honour of ‘Old Hickory,’ General Jackson. 
As poles of ash could be procured which were longer and straighter 
than hickory poles, boys of the Whig persuasion made fun of the 
hickory poles. This soon created bad blood between the two parties 
and, not infrequently, the liberty poles were cut down in the night 
time—now by one party and now by another. This led to the device 
of inlaying the poles with horse-shoe-nail iron, with old horse-shoes 
and stubs of nails. Even with these precautions the poles sometimes © 
met an untoward fate for they could be bored off near the ground or, 
with the help of a ladder they might be sawed off above their armour 
plate.” 1 

Personal and party loyalty was more prominent in the early days 
than to-day because so little really serious attention was given to issues. 

People liked to listen to political orators and to argue political questions 
but this can hardly be called serious attention to issues. Emotional 
oratory played a much more prominent part in political campaigns in 
the early days than later. It was also more pronounced in the sermons 
of those days than to-day. The tendency to argue, also, was pro- 
nounced both in the church and in politics. In our typical town most 
neighbourhoods had Whigs and Democrats and eight neighbourhoods 
had taverns, so there were abundant opportunities for argument. 
As one old resident said, “A Whig couldn’t meet a Democrat without 
stopping to argue.” The impulse in argument was to silence the 
opponent. He was to be argued to the point where he “‘couldn’t say 
a word.” The method was to urge one’s own ideas and to hold up 
to ridicule those of one’s opponent. At the same time the disputants 
tried not to appear domineering. The farmer who resented the I- 
know-it-all attitude in another was apt to be careful not to get so 
carried away as to display it himself. One who did, even if he 
silenced an opponent, was not always at peace in his triumph and 
might add, “Perhaps it’s just as well we don’t all think alike.” 

- Owing to the strength of adherence to beliefs the farmer had little 
interest in ideas as such. His interest was limited to ideas that had 
a very clear relation to his beliefs. So politicians presented the 
policies they supported in a way to give them a plausible connection 
with the farmer’s beliefs. But almost any political policy could be 
thus plausibly commended to the farmer. Free trade could; protection 
could; internal improvements could. The farmer’s interest in 


188 RURAL HERITAGE 


political policies was not solely from the point of view of his economic 
interests. He did not think enough about his economic interests to 
know what they really were. Consequently he did not think any pro- 
posed policy through from the point of view of his economic interests. 
He assumed that the policies of his party, plausibly explained as for 
his economic interests, really were so; hence he supported his party 
from partisanship rather than from any insight into the relation of its 
policies to his interests. Politicians were careful plausibly to connect 
policies with his beliefs as to his interests. For instance, farmers 
were told not only that “protection will make us a great industrial 
nation,” thus appealing to their national pride, but also that the factory 
population would increase the demand for the farmer’s products. 
The conclusive political argument was one that plausibly connected 
the political policy for which the speaker appealed with some pet 
formula. For instance, the free-trader declared he was for free trade 
because it was the policy of “fair play and every man for himself 
without help or hindrance.” The protectionist declared for protection 
because “We ought to be independent of other nations.” The free 
trade argument justified free trade by plausibly associating it with a 
cherished formula; the protectionist argument justified protection by 
associating it with another cherished formula. Thus the relative merits 
of the controversy were stated in a few simple sentences to the entire 
satisfaction of the disputants. This association of free trade and 
protection with pet formulas survived in political argument long after 
the era of cheap land, when every man could be for himself without 
help or hindrance, had passed, and long after the local community and 
the nation had passed out of the era of independence of other nations. 
This simple reasoning satisfied the farmer because of his predilec- 
tion for formulas and because his reasoning powers were untrained. 
Political problems appeared to be simple so long as he could reason 
by superficial association with formulas or by analogy. As an ex- 
ample of analogy, at the back of the farmer’s mind there always was 
the analogy of the nation with his own community. Each little rural 
community was, as we have seen, largely independent of the outside- 
world. The nation was largely made up of these rural communities. 
So he could reason on the analogy of the community and the nation. 
As the policies of the community were based on the principle of in- 
dependence and isolation so should be the policies of the nation. 
National issues could thus plausibly be seen in the light of the attitudes 
and beliefs that characterized the local community. Very seductive, 


Ee! 





POLITICAL ATTITUDES 189 


then, was the tendency to reason from analogy and its fallacy was 
not evident to people untrained in the economics of international 
trade. 

Reasoning by superficial association enabled the farmer to under- 
stand and justify the policies of his party to his satisfaction and so 
to justify his partisanship. Partisanship made his interest in politics 
a sporting interest. The talk of one who backed the Republican horse 
with one who backed the Democratic horse resembled the talk of two 
men at a horse race. Each assumed the other was all wrong in his 
estimate of the horses. Each had a few pet ideas as a point of de- 
parture and return. The actual political situation in its broad outlines 
and its real significance was as unknown to them as it is to most 
voters to-day. Nevertheless, as long as issues had some plausible 
association with the beliefs and social background of the farmer’s mind 
he thought he understood them. The association might be very super- 
ficial without disturbing his assurance. For politics were not very 
vital to the welfare of the farmer. Political doings were interesting 
matter for talk and argument after the day’s work was done. So he 
gave his superficial reasoning processes free play. In the political 
speeches of the time this type of thinking was pronounced. The 
political orators of those days were men of a plausible “gift of gab” 
and the speech was such as to fit in with a torchlight procession and 
crowd enthusiasm. Its point of departure and return were certain 
beliefs and imagery of the audience. There was no disinterested 
attempt to enlighten the audience as to the political situation or to 
explain the underlying currents. 

Partisanship was rendered more extreme by partisan newspapers. 
The newspapers owed their power to the cleverness with which their 
editors, for instance, those of the New York Sun and the New York 
Tribune, gave the issues of the parties they represented plausibility 
by associating them with the beliefs and imagery of the people. The 
Sun or the Tribune shared with the Bible the place of the inspired 
word in the home. On Sunday the women went in to church while 
the men, in many cases, stayed outside and read the Tribune or the 
Sun and talked politics. 

Partisanship was rendered extreme, also, by extremely partisan 
political leaders. The most popular leaders have owed their popularity 
to their personal force and their uncompromising and aggressive par- 
tisanship. President Jackson was perhaps more popular among rural 
Democrats than has been any president before or since his time. His 


190 RURAL HERITAGE 


popularity lay in the fact that, as one old resident expressed it, “He 
would do what he thought was right regardless of anything. If he 
wanted to pile up cotton bales and thrash the British he would do it.” 
He was an aggressive partisan. And the people in turn, both men 
and women, were partisan enough to glory in an extremely partisan 
leader. This was true of the women as well as the men. Even 
Jackson’s swearing did not diminish his popularity among the most 
pious women. Wives of Whigs, in argument with wives of Demo- 
crats, cited his terrible oath “By the eternal!’ to which the reply of 
the most pious was, “But what is the eternal? It is only endless 
time.” 

The political theory of the early days was that, while both parties 
cannot be right when they take opposite sides on an issue, the ascer- 
tainment of the truth is a matter of argument rather than of thinking 
and investigation; wherefore, with perfect freedom of argument the 
truth will become evident. Hence the emphasis on saying what one 
thought in an argument and relentlessly attacking and pressing an 
opponent. This theory of the discovery of truth fitted in with the 
farmer’s predilection for argument. Politics were for him a sporting 
event in which two keen arguers were matched one against the other. 
Obviously the theory of the ascertainment of truth by means of 
argument could last only so long as political situations were relatively 
simple and were not considered very vital for the interests of the 
individual. As long as the farmer produced on his own farm about 
all he consumed, why should he seriously care whether the country went 
Republican or Democratic? When later he began to realize that his 
economic interests were vitally involved in political issues, he ceased 
to be entirely satisfied with the theory that arguments between politi- 
cians could be trusted to reveal the wisdom of political policies. 

The partisanship of the farmer strengthened the subservient attitude 
to the government referred to in the previous chapter. He would 
bitterly criticize the government in a time of agricultural depression 
when the other party was in power and then resign himself when his 
own party was in the saddle. The partisan attitude has made the 
agricultural population politically ineffective, so far as achieving its 
legitimate economic interests by political means is concerned. 

The farmer always has had a more effective interest in local, than 
in state and national politics. Reforms calculated to increase the 
efficiency of the public service by making state and federal officers 
appointive instead of elective, thus making it possible to secure the 


Se ll le 


POLITICAL ATTITUDES 191 


services of experts, have won little support in the rural districts. 
The appointment of officials has seemed to the rural voter one way 
of enabling a little oligarchy to appoint its favourites and thus extend 
its power, as indeed has often happened. The result is that the in- 
fluence of the rural electorate has not made for political efficiency 
outside of the local administration. The administration of the 
assessor and the local justice has been devoid of “red tape’’ because, 
on account of the local interest, efficient men were apt to be elected 
to those offices. But the lack of effective political interest enabled 
incompetent men to get into the state and national administrations, 
and one result, among others, was the development of the red tape and 
extravagance that marks state and national administration. 

The farmer’s deep-seated attitude of loyalty expressed itself not 
only in family, sectarian and party loyalty but also in loyalty to 
country. The farmer was well satisfied with his country because of 
the economic opportunities he enjoyed, and because there was a min- 
imum of interference by the government with his use of those oppor- 
tunities. Furthermore, the farmer was conscious of possessing at 
least as strong a political influence as any other class. Later he was 
conscious of a diminishing influence owing to the increase, in the 
second period, of the influence of railroads and trusts over the govern- 
ment. Because of his satisfaction with the government he had no 
patience with socialistic, anarchistic or any other radical ideas. His 
patriotism had also an aspect that connected it with the tribal enthu- 
siasm of the past, that is, a valorous, my-country-right-or-wrong 
aspect. The nationalistic outbursts of the nineteenth century centred 
in great demonstrations in the cities but, judging from the fulminations 
in the village papers, the rural districts were one with the cities in 
these chauvinistic expressions. This susceptibility to emotional 
nationalism is a trait that takes us back into the remote past. The 
old tribal hostility against all other tribes continued to animate the 
nations that were gradually formed out of the tribal groups. By the 
middle of the eighteenth century improvements in communication 
had facilitated the spread of this group emotion and, in the nineteenth 
century, the telegraph, the telephone and the daily newspaper still 
further fostered it. At the same time the rural neighbourhoods re- 
mained isolated, their chauvinism not subject to the mollifying influ- 
ence of the limited contact with foreign nations which affected more 
cosmopolitan centres of the country. The result was that the rural 
districts were strongholds of nationalistic prejudice and aloofness. 


CHAPTER XXI 


REFLECTIONS ON EARLY RURAL LIFE; ADHERENCE TO CUSTOM 


DHERENCE to custom has characterized rural communities 
all over the world. The processes involved are largely 
subliminal. That is, custom is not followed because of 

conscious reasons though reasons may be assigned. When asked as 
to the why of their ways of doing the reply of the early farmer was, 
“We have always done that way.’’ They did so because they had 
been in the habit of doing so from generation to generation. The 
present was like the past, wherefore the farmer expected the future 
to be like the present. This attitude to the future made suggestions 
of change seem hardly worth considering. Accordingly, adherence 
to custom may be accounted for in simple terms. Habits persist and 
this develops a non-expectant attitude to the future. This persistence 
of habits that characterize all is sanctioned by the antiquity and 
universal prevalence of custom, by the social pressure of all on anyone 
who is inclined to dissent, and by the plausible explanations of the 
goodness of customs. This is the nature of custom all over the world. 
But we are considering the adherence to custom of a rural population. 
Wherefore our problem involves an inquiry into the rural conditions 
that cause habits to persist; the problem is not cleared up until these 
conditions are set forth. 

The essential conditions of adherence to custom of the early rural 


population were the uncertainty of the weather, the independence of © 


the farmer, his isolation and the hard and confining nature of his 
occupation. First, as to the weather, some of the weather attitudes 
described in Chapter V increased adherence to custom, for instance, 
resignation and the centring on the process rather than on the results 
of work. As long as the farmer was entirely resigned to his condi- 
tion, as long as he was content with a mere living and emphasized 
industrious working in the customary way above results, there was 
little incentive to change. Furthermore, as we saw, the uncertainty 
of the weather inclined the farmer against planning for the future, 


and made him indifferent to scientific knowledge; so he was inclined 
192 


EARLY RURAL LIFE; ADHERENCE TO CUSTOM 193 


to go along in the customary way. Again, the uncertainty of the 
weather strengthened the belief in special providence, so that a man 
was inclined to rely on supernatural help instead of on his own 
reason and his progressive impulses. Wherefore a population whose 
prosperity depended largely on the weather was bound to be conserva- 
tive. 

Aside from the weather, which is a particular aspect of physical 
nature, nature had a general aspect that made for conservatism. The 
farmer’s constant contact with nature kindled a realization of the 
inexorableness of natural processes. This affected his attitude in his 
social relations and so strengthened adherence to custom. Natural 
processes are the same yesterday, to-day and for ever. The seasons, 
though uncertain, are what they are and the farmer must resign him- 
self to the inexorable and go along in the customary way. 

The second condition named was the farmer’s independence. This 
strengthened adherence to custom. He owned his own instruments 
of production, could make a living beholden to no man and so was 
not driven by the annoyances of subjection and exploitation to question 
his economic and political relations. He owned his land, could easily 
extend his acreage, enjoyed a maximum of freedom from govern- 
mental interference in his economic life, felt that he had his proper 
influence over the government and so was well satisfied with things 
as they were. 

As to isolation the farmer was little in contact with anybody outside 
his own family. He knew little of the outside world through news- 
papers and magazines. The deficiency in means of transportation 
prevented travelling. His essential relation was with physical nature. 
He felt that he must depend on himself. Hence he was self-centred 
and averse to discussion. He did not develop the faculty of getting 
another’s mental background. His isolation centred his interest in 
his family. Religion was essentially a solicitude for the salvation of 
self and family. With this assured the farmer could afford to accept 
things as they were, for this life was short and there was a long rest 
ahead. 

Finally, there was the confining nature of the farmer’s occupation 
and the necessity of incessant action. Let us consider these two con- 
ditions separately. The confining nature of agriculture in the early 
days was due to the fact that all farmers kept live-stock. Later 
specialized farming developed and many farmers could leave the 
farm, after the crop in which they specialized was harvested, and 


194. RURAL HERITAGE 


attend meetings for the discussion of their problems or travel and 
learn of the different methods of other farmers. This tended to 
weaken adherence to custom. But in the early days all farmers kept 
live-stock which required daily attention. So, in slack times, instead 
of getting away from his work the farmer surrendered to the prompt- 
ings of his action habits and “puttered around,’ often about some- 
thing that did not matter much, If he had a hired man he hated to 
see him idle, so he worked to keep him working. _ 

Farming required incessant action. The farmer was a complex 
mechanism of habits of action, a magnificent muscular machine. 
Under long discipline of this necessity of action, and, on occasion, 
of extreme exertion he developed an attitude of impatience toward 
mere ideas. He had no time for talk and discussion. “Go ahead and 
do as I say” was his attitude toward his men and boys. Because 
of the confining nature of his occupation he never got away from this 
attitude. This made for extreme adherence to custom. 

The effect of the farmer’s struggle with nature on adherence to 
custom cannot be over-emphasized. Under the stress of that struggle 
his various attitudes had become adapted to his survival in the struggle. 
Any change of attitude was felt to be unsafe for a change in one 
would unsettle all. Parents were apprehensive as to the future of 
children who appeared indolent or thriftless or otherwise weak or 
erring as judged according to the attitudes and beliefs of the com- 
munity. This feeling of apprehension was an essential element in 
the subliminal consciousness of the farmer. He never got away from 
it. “Life is a battle’ is the way he expressed it. Not only must 
he overcome all obstacles and live an exemplary life but his children 
must be kept loyal to the prevailing beliefs. 

There were marked contrasts in this matter of strong action. 
There were men of shiftless habits and these habits often passed from 
father to son. The two types of behaviour reacted on each other. 
The very active and thrifty farmer went a little further in the direc- 
tion of action and thrift from his contempt for the shiftless, and the 
shiftless went a little further in shiftlessness from his defiance of the 
thrifty. A good deal of the talk of the shiftless was of the foolish 
thrift of the thrifty, that is, of certain extreme labour or saving 
that gained little or nothing, and a good deal of the talk of the 
thrifty was of the shiftlessness of the shiftless. Each was confirmed 
in his habits by his contempt for, or defiance of the other. 

Defiance of those who differ was still more pronounced in adher- 


EARLY RURAL LIFE; ADHERENCE TO CUSTOM 195 


ence to religious beliefs. The ancestors of many of the early settlers 
left Europe because of their defiance, as dissenters, of the dominant 
ecclesiastical organization. The keen sectarianism of different sects 
in the rural parts of the New World was a reflection of this Old 
World sectarian domination or defiance. This religious intolerance 
intensified adherence to particular beliefs. Once this sectarian attitude 
weakened, these beliefs began to lose their credibility. Defiance was 
marked in connection not only with religious beliefs but also with mere 
ways of doing. Farmers stuck to their table manners, their ways of 
farming all the more tenaciously because of the opposite behaviour. 
They ridiculed any ways contrary to their own. 

Another cause of adherence to custom was the homogeneity of the 
rural neighbourhood. The attitudes of the farmer prevailed through- 
out the neighbourhood. This was because most of the families were 
farmers’ families. The artisan, the doctor, the storekeeper, the 
miller and the minister were quite apt also to be farmers on a small 
scale. Because of the similarity of the attitudes of all, there were 
not the different ideas and points of view that are found among the 
diverse occupations of a city. This unbroken adherence to custom 
of the neighbourhood expressed itself as a sense of neighbourhood loy- 
alty. The people of the neighbourhood took as a personal affront any 
denial, on the part of one of their number, of the truth of their beliefs 
or the superiority of their ways. The attitude of parents whereby they 
vehemently dominated a doubting child was transmuted to community 
relations and a dissenter was denounced and detested. “He thinks 
he knows it all” was the indignant reaction of the community when- 
ever an individual differed quietly in some matter on which the com- 
munity was set and thereby implied that the community did not know 
it all. 

Another condition that intensified adherence to custom was filial 
loyalty. The son not only accepted the beliefs of the father but 
accepted them as an expression of the loyalty that a son owes a father. 
This was true to a degree of all beliefs and especially of religious. 
The son’s belief in God was in his father’s and his mother’s God. 
Heaven was a place where one would meet one’s parents and other 
loved ones. To deny God meant to give up hope of meeting them, 
to be disloyal to them. So family affection and loyalty intensified 
adherence to beliefs. 

The struggle with nature developed the attitude of self-restraint 
that was so pronounced in early rural life. One of the essential causes 


196 RURAL HERITAGE 


of departure from custom is a yielding to impulse and the farmer’s 
restraint of impulse conduced to adherence to custom. He felt that 
he was distinguished from the impulsive working class of the cities 
by his self-restraint. He regarded labourers as too thriftless to save 
and become property owners, and as radical because jealous of property 
owners. His reaction against this radical or “‘impulsive’’ class still 
further strengthened adherence to custom. 

Impulsiveness is most conspicuous in the young, self-restraint in the 
old. In the early community the influence of the older generation 
was pronounced. The boy got his vocational and character training 
from his father, the girl from her mother. To-day the young get 
their training in the schools and their ideas often differ from those 
of their parents. The result is a loss of authority on the part of 
parents. Hence the impulses of the young are less restrained, and 
consequently, as adults, they are less set in adherence to custom. 

In spite of the self-restraint involved in the struggle with nature, 
the strongest tendencies of human nature were well satisfied under the 
prevailing customary behaviour; and adherence to custom was pro- 
nounced because of this satisfaction. Impulses for food were satisfied 
by abundant food, impulses for sex by early marriage, impulses for 
action by the active life. Acquisitive impulses were well satisfied 
for the farmer was contented with making a living and paying a little 
on the place. He had a settled home, which satisfied the homing 
impulse. He had numerous children which satisfied parental impulses. 
Impulses to avoid disapproval were easily satisfied in a group as 
homogeneous as the early neighbourhood. Impulses for rivalry 
and display were not much stimulated under the early conditions and 
were easily satisfied where all were too busy for much display and all 
were in very moderate circumstances so that none could hope for 
recognition of superiority beyond that of being a successful farmer. 
There were abundant opportunities to satisfy sympathetic impulses 
where the prevailing likeness of attitudes made it easy to understand 
one another, where substantial equality prevailed and where there 
was need of help at times on the part of all. Fearfulness was satisfied 
by faith in special providence. Because of the emphasis on action 
intellectual impulses were not much stimulated and were satisfied by 
the demands for ingenuity in performing the day’s work. These 
satisfactions under the customary behaviour tended to strengthen ad- 
herence thereto. 

The early conditions were such as to stimulate certain tendencies 


EARLY RURAL LIFE; ADHERENCE TO CUSTOM 197 


that make for conformity and not to stimulate certain ones that are 
against it. The early rural community was an isolated group of busy 
workers. Conditions stimulated the acquisitive tendency, the tendency 
to want approval, the tendency for the familiar, and did not stimulate 
the rivalrous and intellectual tendencies, which make against conform- 
ity. The acquisitive tendency does not much stir the imagination, as 
does rivalry. It is concerned mainly with satisfying needs. The tend- 
ency to want approval prompts the suppression of differences of 
opinion which will incur disapproval and ridicule and the acceptance of 
the prevailing beliefs. The tendency for the familiar causes a dislike 
of new ideas and behaviour and a preference for the old and familiar. 
It is one of the tendencies involved in the rural dislike of foreigners. 
Immigration did not much tend to change customs. The immigration 
of the Irish and Welsh, their poverty, their brogue, their “outlandish 
ways,” merely assured the natives of the superiority of their own ways 
and strengthened their adherence to custom. 

Certain beliefs are particularly difficult to change because discussion 
of them stirs such emotion that it is difficult to think quietly. Among 
rural people this was and is true of beliefs about sex and about prop- 
erty. Furthermore, influential classes were particularly interested in 
maintaining beliefs about sex relations and property. The clergy were 
interested in maintaining sex beliefs and the landowners generally 
were interested in maintaining beliefs about property. 

The isolation of the rural community was unfavourable to the stim- 
ulation of intellectual impulses. Children received their vocational 
training and their training in character from their parents. The rural 
school instruction consisted merely of rudiments of information. The 
attitudes and beliefs consciously and unconsciously inculcated in chil- 
dren were similar to those acquired under their parents. The formative 
contact of children and youths was, therefore, that with their parents 
and with each other. Children constantly were enjoined to do and 
think like their elders. Furthermore, the extreme self-restraint 
referred to in a preceding paragraph gave the farmer’s discipline a 
highly emotional character. As he restrained his own unruly impulses 
with strong resolution, so he vehemently restrained those of his 
children. Disrespectful behaviour toward parents more certainly in- 
curred punishment in those days than to-day. Corporal punishment 
was more common and more severe. The indignation of a parent was 
impressive. His whole personality expressed his indignation with 
a child who questioned a moral or religious belief. This restraining 


198 RURAL HERITAGE 


attitude of parents gave a fixity to beliefs inculcated in children. 
These beliefs acquired in childhood remained throughout life a vital 
force in behaviour, especially as rural children were not much in con- 
tact with the outside world. 

The limited stimulus on the intellect was due also to the fact that 
most knowledge was handed down as oral tradition by the parents. 
This was true not only of vocational but also of religious knowledge. 
To be sure the basis of religion was the Bible but children got their 
religious beliefs from the teaching of the parents and the preaching 
of the minister, and the Bible was not apt to be appealed to except in a 
controversy. Then it was interpreted in a way to justify the beliefs 
orally handed down. Agricultural knowledge was still more entirely 
a matter of oral tradition. The boy got his farm training from his 
father and felt that, as his father had done, so he must do. If another 
farmer happened to do differently in certain particulars still his way 
of doing was no more authoritative than that of the boy’s father, and 
loyalty impelled him to stick to that way. 

The deep-seated attitude of filial regard for parental authority con- 
tinued after the parents grew old. And, because the beliefs of the 
younger generation diverged little from those of the older, little de- 
veloped to disparage parental authority. A hale old age was one more 
proof of the wisdom of a custom-abiding life, as against the impul- 
siveness and failures of impetuous youth. Furthermore, a grand- 
parent quite often lived in the family and the example of the respect of 
parents for their parents influenced the children in their impressionable 
years. This respect for the old in the family developed a respect for 
old people generally, which strengthened adherence to custom. 

We have described the conditions of the rural community which 
combined to accentuate adherence to custom. These very favourable 
conditions strengthened certain psychological processes that are pro- 
nounced in conservatism. One of these is the process of slurring over 
unpleasant recollections. This has two distinct effects. First, it 
causes people to ignore unpleasant effects of customary behaviour. 
A very unpleasant experience is remembered and acted upon but less 
annoying experiences are slurred over and people continue to act in 
the customary way in spite of them. To be sure the annoyances may 
not be entirely forgotten but may persist as subliminal states until 
an accretion of these suddenly produces a radical change. This 
process of change is seen in the expansion of rural life which followed 
the customary period we are describing in this book. However, the 


: 
: 


ae a 


EARLY RURAL LIFE; ADHERENCE TO CUSTOM 199 


tendency to slur over the unpleasant greatly retards social change 
and makes for adherence to custom. The second effect of the slurring 
over is to forget unpleasant and dwell on pleasant experiences of the 
past. Thus the past seems more pleasant in retrospect than it really 
was and this tends to sanctify custom. Furthermore, there is added 
to this sentimental appeal of the past the thought of the many who 
have lived happily and died triumphantly under that culture. This 
sentiment for tradition was kept alive by the appeals of the clergy. 

Closely connected with this sentimental support of adherence to 
custom was the habit of justifying customs by secondary explanations. 
This process of secondary explanation, or “rationalization” as it is 
sometimes called, was particularly important because of its prom- 
inence in religion which had a paramount place in the life of the early 
rural community. 

Finally, adherence to custom was pronounced because of the uncon- 
scious nature of attitudes. An understanding of one’s attitudes is 
a result of education and culture, of which there was little in the rural 
community. Farmers were not any more than other people conscious 
of the attitudes that determined their behaviour. Questions as to the 
why of the attitudes of others make people conscious of their own and 
force them to consider the why of their own. But the tendency is 
to justify and maintain their own unchanged. This tendency was 
particularly strong in the early rural population. 

Because farmers were unconscious of their attitudes, the task of the 
student of the psychology of rural development is extremely difficult. 
It requires an analysis of rural attitudes; and the use of mere terms, 
for instance, “rural conservatism,” to cover up ignorance, gets us 
nowhere. For instance, the farmer’s opposition to governmental 
regulation of industry has been assigned to rural conservatism. Now 
there are particular attitudes that are involved in the distrust of gov- 
ernmental regulation. One of these is the distrust of politicians and 
government officials. Another is the fear of retaliation. Both 
these attitudes are found in early rural life and were accentuated in 
the course of the expansion of rural life. Politicians came to be 
thoroughly distrusted and the fear of retaliation increased with the 
increasing control of the government by railroads and manufacturers. 
The idea was that if manufacturers have the prices of their products 
fixed, they will retaliate by demanding a limit on the prices of farm 
products. As one farmer put it: “Once begin governmental regula- 
tion and the next thing you will have is regulation against the farmer ; 


200 RURAL HERITAGE 


and that will come just as soon as, by co-operation, the farmer has set 
prices in a direction advantageous to himself.” One cannot explain 
in general terms any pronounced belief of farmers but must get at 
the attitudes behind the belief. 

A people is conservative when its behaviour is largely determined by 
the stable formations we call attitudes and habits. Even the simplest 
habit is a complicated mechanism, much more so is an attitude. As an 
individual cannot break a bad habit or change an attitude merely by 
resolving to do so, but must put himself under the influence of new 
conditions and cultivate a series of new reactions, so it is with a 
social custom. In The Expansion of Rural Life we shall see that 
farmers could not change their customary individualism and develop 
co-operation merely by resolving to do so and forming organizations 
for that purpose. They had first to pass out of the era of isolation, 
to rise above the necessity of constant activity and exertion by the 
accumulation of some capital, and to realize that they were no longer 
independent. Then, as a result of these new conditions there grad- 
ually developed the new ideas and the readiness to change old ways 
of doing that made co-operation possible. 

The culture of the early days had, then, an attitude of pronounced 
adherence to custom. It persisted wherever the conditions that caused 
it continued. The weather attitudes, isolation, a sense of independ- 
ence, hard and confining farm conditions maintained this attitude in 
certain parts long after it had become less pronounced in others. 
Wherever conditions were such as to perpetuate the weakness of the 
reflective attitude, which, as we saw in Chapter XVIII, was the essen- 
tial defect in the farmer’s intellectual equipment, there the attitude 
against change continued. This attitude is seen in the remark of a 
farmer about voting on constitutional amendments. He said: “I 
don’t understand these constitutional amendments we have to vote on. 
When you don’t understand a thing the best way is to vote ‘No.’” 
In the absence of power of reflection and understanding, the attitude 
against change asserts itself, 


CHAPTER XXII 
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 


HE attitudes we have analysed were distinctly social attitudes 
in that they prevailed throughout the community. The de- 
velopment of the individual from his or her earliest years was 

shaped in accord with them. Yet they, in turn, were in accord with 
certain essential tendencies of the individual. Among these was the 
diurnal rhythm from action to rest, which in the last analysis is an 
expression of physiological processes. The family satisfied this 
rhythm more or less as a unit, though the family habits of action and 
rest might not be in entire accord with the inclinations of the individual. 
The farmer’s day at its fullest and best was one in which the family 
all were in action early under the suggestion of the most positive 
characters, then at the close of the day, were at rest and in sympathetic 
intercourse, under the suggestion of the most sympathetic. The family 
liked harmony in these its two fundamental moods. The girl idling 
around during work hours was told: ‘‘For heaven’s sake, Ann, get 
to work! I don’t care what you do, but do something!’ Then Ann, 
scolded during the working period, might at the close of the day be 
the most prized member of the family circle because of her restful 
and sympathetic qualities, and the leader in the work, still clattering 
in the kitchen, might be told, “For mercy’s sake, Bess, come and sit 
down and be quiet!” The neighbourhood, as well as the family, 
satisfied the rhythm somewhat as a unit. An industrious farmer’s 
family was annoyed by a neighbouring family that lacked the custom- 
ary industry, and was pleased by an industrious one. And a family 
was immensely pleased with a neighbouring family that was “good 
company” after the day’s work was done. The tendency throughout 
the neighbourhood was to be industrious during the day and good 
company in the evening. 

Industry and neighbourliness were essential forms of social rela- 
tionship. Each form expressed several elemental tendencies. In- 
dustry included assertiveness as well as acquisitiveness. A farmer 


industriously cultivated his fields not only in order to get a good 
201 


202 RURAL HERITAGE 


crop but also that they might look well or better than a neighbours. 
Neighbourliness, also, included a variety of elemental tendencies. The 
families which had a picnic at the close of the day enjoyed not only 
being together, that is, satisfaction of the tendency of sociability, but 
also the good meal. In addition each member satisfied his own per- 
sonal tendencies. Some liked to sit and talk, others to play with the 
children, others to wander around by themselves and enjoy the beauties 
of the woods and the waterfall. Still others, those who had a pro- 
nounced constructive tendency, were the organizers of the occasion. 
They felt the responsibility of the picnic, “took it all on themselves” 
and the rest “let them.’’ So they did not get as much rest as the others 
and were less strong for picnics. But all enjoyed getting together and 
eating. So neighbourliness satisfied certain tendencies common to all. 

In social relaxation the personality did not swing free as it does in 
the most successful relaxation. Impulses were held in check by 
various social attitudes, particularly by various conventional forms of 
assertiveness. One of these was the assertiveness of the male sex. In 
the chapters on the family it was shown that male jealousy was strong 
and that this necessitated extreme care on the part of the wife, in her 
social relations. The result was a restraint on intercourse between 
married men and women in the social gathering. In the training of 
her daughters the mother emphasized the necessity of modesty, which 
meant not merely decent behaviour but observance of the customary fe- 
male restraint in social intercourse when men were present. The re- 
sult was a bashfulness on the part of girls, instead of that natural 
frankness where the comradely aspect of social relations is encouraged. 
The restraint of the girls in turn encouraged assertiveness in the boys. 
The relations of boys and girls did not tend to be ingenuous. Their 


impulses were too closely related to sex. In addition to the assertive- — 
ness and submissiveness of sex, another cause of the check on free © 


relaxation was the assertiveness of families in their relations with 
one another. Neighbours were generous in time of need but, other- 
wise, each family was centred on its own affairs, and there was more 
or less rivalry, jealousy and suspicion between families. This family 
centredness restrained free relaxation in the social gathering. 

The acquisitiveness of the family developed an organization for ac- 
quisition, which involved the action of two other elemental tendencies, 
assertiveness and submissiveness. Thus there developed attitudes of 
authority and subordination. The farmer’s assertiveness took two 


social forms, a rivalry for superiority as compared with other heads 


SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 203 


of families of the neighbourhood, with a desire for recognition of 
his superiority particularly by the members of his own family 
—thus he made good his position of leadership in the family; and a 
more direct and positive assertion against the wilfully inactive, that is, 
domination. Domination resulted in the submission of the less active 
to the influence or command of the more active and a striking superior- 
ity won the admiration of the less competent and an acquiescence in the 
leadership of the superior. But the assertion, particularly in the form 
of domination, of the most active and competent was tempered by the 
reaction on him of his group. The assertive father wanted peace in 
his family, so to a degree he had to submit. 

Also, there was often assertiveness on the part of neighbours toward 
one another. In the neighbourhood co-operation, the most competent 
stood forth as leaders and others just naturally followed their direc- 
tions. Another form of assertiveness was the horseplay between 
farmers and their rivalry in feats of work. There was also a good 
deal of intimidation in disputes over property. However, because of 
the prevailing sense of equality, there was an intense dislike of one 
who submitted to another’s domination. There was also an intense 
inclination against acknowledging inferiority as a worker, and the boy 
of fourteen who had struggled all day to keep up his row with the men 
in the potato field turned from them as the tears rushed to his eyes 
when he saw he was falling behind. The farmer’s strenuous attack 
on nature made the associated tendency of assertiveness pronounced 
and the result was a pronounced reaction on the part of the whole com- 
munity against any dominating individual. So even the most assertive 
had to submit. Wherefore, while assertion of superiority and dom- 
ination, on the one hand, and admiration for superiority and sub- 
mission were in evidence, the tendencies to dispute superiority and to 
resist domination were pronounced. 

The impulses of social intercourse, also, involved the reaction of 
some individuals on others. Social intercourse stimulated a cheeriness 
and generosity that infected the passively social. The assertive per- 
son in a social gathering spoiled the occasion but the company had to 
be enlivened and the one who was “the life of the company” was the 
cheery, generous person whose laugh was infectious and at the same 
time not at the expense of another, whose humour was mirth-provoking 
and not the wit or the pun-making that seeks attention. This good 
cheer and humour resulted in the warming of the less toward the more 
social. By way of summary, then, we may say that the main charac- 


204, RURAL HERITAGE 


teristics of power of social suggestion in the rural group were the com- 
petence that stirs admiration, the domination that compels submission 
and the cheeriness and generosity that win devotion. 

The form of leadership most effective with the farmer was one that 
combined these qualities. The minister of influence was one whose 
force won admiration and who assumed a dominating attitude toward 
sinners. His manner was direct, attitude tense, voice stentorian and 
gestures “straight from the shoulder.” The minister must be powerful 
and direct but that was not all. He must be a tender shepherd, bear- 
ing in his great heart the troubles of all his flock and presenting these 
severally before the “throne of grace.”’ It was this ready compassion 
and generous attitude on behalf of all that endeared him to his people. 

Religion served these two sides of human nature. It assisted the 
farmer to assert himself above the troubles, hardships and disappoint- 
ments of life, and there developed a distinct attitude of self-assertion 
by means of religious symbols. The contemplation of a mighty God 
on his side gave the farmer some feeling of might. It also assisted 
the tendency to feel divine love and protection and to be soothed to 
rest by this thought; thus there developed a distinct attitude of self- 
comfort by means of religious symbols. 

The psychology of the early American neighbourhood differed from 
that of a primitive group that lived by hunting as well as agriculture, 
not only in the fact that its assertiveness expressed itself in different at- 
titudes but also in the fact that its assertiveness was somewhat less pro- 
nounced than that of the primitive group. The hunting and war 
parties of primitive man gave more opportunities for assertiveness than 
the peaceful cultivation of the soil gave the farmer. While strenuous 
acquisitiveness stimulates the associated tendency of assertiveness, yet 
the isolated life and the constant industriousness of the farmer left 
him little time for assertiveness and offered little stimulus to it. He 
had the tendency strong but the attitudes were not pronounced or 
varied. However there were forms of assertiveness in the family and 
the neighbourhood, as already stated, and there were also two vents 
that the farmer’s neighbourhood had in common with the primitive 
tribe, that is, patriotism and sectarianism. The intensity of these 
forms of intolerance among a rural population evidences, among other — 
things, a strong and inadequately socialized assertiveness. Patriotism 
and sectarianism were vented rather than socially expressed assertive- 


ness. 
The economic situation of the early American farmer differed from — 


SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 205 


that of the European peasant in that the American neighbourhood was 
a group of independent men all of whom might and most of whom did 
own land. The abundance of cheap land resulted in a good degree of 
economic equality and the result was the tendency of the farmer to 
regard himself as good as anybody else and to resent any “uppishness” 
in another. So the “big feeling” farmer was not liked, nor was the 
too submissive farmer. Domination and submissiveness were avoided 
and the attitude that won esteem was that of the farmer who limited 
his assertiveness to the defence of his rights and, day after day, “kept 
right on sawing wood” without paying attention to what somebody else 
was doing. The esteemed man was the one who could mind his own 
business and at the same time had the assurance of the mighty worker 
and the generosity of the good neighbour, 

Ownership of property stimulated assertiveness. In the family the 
farmer’s assertiveness was strengthened by the fact that he owned the 
property. And, if a question of superiority happened to arise in the 
neighbourhood, the successful farmer took a grim satisfaction in 
the reflection that his success spoke for itself. Ownership af- 
fected also the sociable tendency, as seen in the benign expression of 
the man of property—“the graciousness of conscious power.” Even 
the farmer who had not much property but merely owned a little 
farm showed a degree of assertiveness. His sense of his independ- 
ence of other men rested on his ownership for, because of that owner- 
ship, he “could make a living beholden to no man.” The independent 
farmer resisted domination, without wanting to dominate, be- 
cause he did not want to submit. He resisted a demonstration of 
competence, without wanting to be superior, because he did not want 
to feel inferior to another. His characteristic attitude was not one of 
pride of superiority or one of domination but one of resistance of these 
attitudes in another. | 

The resistfulness of the rank and file of farmers is to be dis- 
tinguished from the resistfulness of a progressive rural leadership. 
That of the rank and file springs from their independent ownership 
of land. Farmers who own their own land and are intent on 
its cultivation do not like to take orders from another. They 
are impatient with the man who jumps over the fence and starts in to 
tell the farmer how to raise his crop. They are impatient with govern- 
ment restrictions. That is, where you have a group of men who have 
long enjoyed independent ownership, there is an underlying dis- 
position to resist anything that interferes with what they want to do. 


206 RURAL HERITAGE 


This form of resistfulness may be called independence. Another form 
is that of a small group of ‘“‘progressive”’ farmers who are resistful not 
merely because of assertiveness but because of the voltage of that 
group of tendencies that beget a lively regard for the public welfare 
and social progress. 

The American farmer knew less of submission than the peasant on 
a landlord’s estate. To be sure we must not forget that relations with 
physical nature, as well as relations with human beings, beget sub- 
mission. The farmer often found that natural processes were inexo- 
rable and that he had to resign himself to unfavourable weather. “We 
have to take it as it comes,’’ he said. So the independent farmer re- 
sembled the European peasant in the resignation that comes of depend- 
ence on the weather, if not in the submissiveness that is fostered by 
dependence on other human beings. The American farmer’s owner- 
ship of land favoured assertiveness and his isolated position favoured 
the resistance form of assertiveness in that isolation compelled self- 
reliance and other resistful qualities. To be sure he wanted the ap- 


proval of his neighbourhood but he was less socially regardful than the . 


peasants of Europe who live in hamlets, and less so than the modern 
industrial worker who goes with his group rather than be called a scab. 

The assertiveness of the farmer, then, mainly took the form of re- 
sistance of encroachments on his free pursuit of his acquisitive inter- 
ests. But it was seen also in connection with sociability. In this 
connection it led the farmer to persist in his own manners and social 
usages in defiance of village and city ways. For instance, the farmer 
noticed the mincing manners of the city person at table and said with 
a laugh, “Pitch in, don’t be bashful.” He disliked “putting on” in 
talk and said to his boy who was going away to school, “Don’t come 


back with your mouth full of mush.” Especially did he dislike “new 


fangled” singing. This was due, in part, to his preference for the old 
familiar songs but not entirely, for a new simple song was enjoyed. 
But the trills and high notes and dramatic action of the concert singer 
were put down as just plain showing off. Now the reason for this 
aversion to assertiveness in social intercourse and for the tendency to 
see it where possibly it did not exist was that it destroyed the com- 
radeship in social intercourse that was so dear to him. So he was 
especially averse to it in eating manners, in talking and in singing. 

The farmer’s resistfulness sometimes ran away beyond the bounds 
prescribed by competence in work or by common sense in social inter- 


SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 207 


course. Much naive social enjoyment in new ways he regarded as 
assertive just because the ways were new. And in the family work 
and planning often he was stubborn in insisting on his right to be 
consulted and to have his way followed. In neighbourhood relations, 
also, the farmer was apt to be stubborn in defence of his rights, often 
beyond reason. Because his assertiveness had the solid basis of land 
ownership, it made him an individualist to such an extent that, when 
co-operation began to be tried, he was inclined to leave a co-operative 
enterprise when it suited his personal advantage even though he 
thereby won the ill-will of the whole community. He was not de- 
pendent on his group for protection against hostile tribes, as was 
primitive man, or for protection against an employer, as is the modern 
industrial worker. But his assertiveness got a jolt as soon as he 
discerned his dependence on his group for protection against the dealer 
in farm produce, and the more clearly he discerned this situation the 
more disposed he was to acquiesce in the regulations of his co- 
operative organization. 

We have said that assertiveness did not have a pronounced or varied 
social expression in the early days. Nevertheless it did have some 
social expression. Its objectives were the physical expression, the skill 
and strength in work, the achievements in production and in accumula- 
tion of wealth, and the other objectives that had come to be socially 
regarded as signifying superiority. While acquisitiveness was more 
pronounced than assertiveness and assertiveness depended a good deal 
on the results of acquisitiveness, particularly on ownership of real 
estate and on the attitudes that became pronounced in the mighty 
worker, at the same time assertiveness depended also on the social 
standing of one’s family. The social standing of the neighbourhood 
and the community also satisfied assertiveness to some degree so that 
neighbourhood and community superiority was, in a minor degree, an 
_ objective ; and this prestige value of group memberships extended even 
to the state and nation. The individual was thus subjected to a wide 
range of social standards in satisfaction of assertiveness. Essential 
among the things that “set up” the family in the community was 
wealth in the various forms that evidenced material prosperity. All 
members of the family responded to this ambition for a creditable 
standing of the family in the community. In the second period, as we 
_ shall see, assertiveness became even more prominent as compared with 
 acquisitiveness and the result was an increasing tendency not to be 


208 RURAL HERITAGE 


satisfied with mere ownership of real estate and money in the bank but 
to spend more money for means of social recognition. 

We have centred on three elemental tendencies that determined social 
relationship in the early community, acquisitiveness, assertiveness and 
sociability. There were others but these were fundamental. The ac- 
quisitive tendency took the social form of industriousness, which, how- 
ever, included assertiveness and other elemental tendencies. The 
assertive tendency took mainly the social form of resistance or sense of 
independence, which, however, included other elemental tendencies. 


The sociable tendency took the form of neighbourliness, which, ’ 


also, involved other tendencies. The task of social-psychological 
analysis involves analysing the essential social forms of behaviour 
into their constituent elemental tendencies. In addition to the three 
elemental tendencies above noted others have been mentioned in the 
course of this work—the tendency for the familiar, the constructive 
tendency and others. The social forms of behaviour involve connec- 
tions of all these tendencies but only the main connections can be de- 
tected. Also the conditions, material and non-material, that determine 
what tendencies shall be stimulated and what connections made are to 
be studied with a view to learning what social psychology has to teach 
as to the conditions of progress. ‘The tendencies and connections that 
are essential under certain conditions, for instance, the conditions of the 
American farmer, may not be essential under others, for instance, those 
of the primitive tribe or those of manufacturing industry. It is neces- 
sary to make intensive studies of typical groups of all kinds. Social 
psychology can centre on the individual and explain how the mental 
mechanisms of the individual function in various social situations or it 
can begin with an analysis of the attitudes and beliefs that are early ac- 
quired by the individual and explain the tendencies and connections in- 
volved. The latter seems to me the more strictly scientific procedure. 
It requires extensive research. The student should centre on particular 
communities and should also extend his comparative studies among 
communities as widely as possible. Even in rural communities of New 
York, acquisitiveness was not equally predominant in all. Some com- 
munities had a more practical religion than others, that is, religion was 
more subordinated to the acquisitive tendency in some communities than 
in others. In the latter industriousness was not so extreme that a man 


would not leave his work in the middle of the week to go to a religious — 


service. In these communities religious assertiveness was pronounced 


SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 209 


and religion took a more demonstrative form; in the other communities 
_assertiveness was more intent on a material satisfaction. It is neces- 
sary to conduct the analysis by communities and thus to get at the pre- 
dominant tendencies of particular communities and then compare them. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT 
SoctAL CoNSCIOUSNESS 


OCIAL processes are more largely subliminal than clearly con- 
cious. This was particularly true of processes of the early 
neighbourhood. From the time the child was born into the 

culture of a neighbourhood, its rearing was a process of bringing its 
impulses into accord with the attitudes and beliefs of its elders. It 
gradually acquired a sense of the opposition of its childish impulses to 
the will of its parents, and, therefore, developed an opposition or a 
suggestibility to parents according to whether it was temperamentally 
perverse or tractable. But, whatever its temperament, the child grad- 
ually developed attitudes that harmonized with at least a substantial 
part of the culture of the neighbourhood. There were adults that re- 
mained unlike their fellows because of certain pronounced impulses 
that gave them distinctly personal attitudes. But most people were 
made by their environment. The prevailing consciousness was, then, 
for the most part, not the clear consciousness of personal impulses and 
ideas in conflict with prevailing attitudes but the subliminal conscious- 
ness of behaviour in conformity therewith. 

In addition to this subliminal consciousness that accompanied the 
formations whereby the individual was identified with his group, there 
was the more pronounced consciousness involved in certain processes. 
The farmer was not merely a part of a group but his assertiveness im- 
pelled him to be a prominent part, to be a man of influence, an ex- 
emplary citizen. The youth was enjoined by his parents not to do 
anything to “hurt his influence’; and those who spoke in eulogistic 
terms of the man who had died called him an exemplary citizen. This 
urge for influence developed in many people into a pronounced attitude 
for social recognition. Unlike the attitude for a particular kind of 
response from a certain individual,’ it is an attitude for the admira- 
tion of the community in general, though the recognition of people of 


prestige and particularly of one’s rivals is especially gratifying. This 
210 


OE 


SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT 211 


urge for recognition would give almost any attitude, ordinarily sublimi- 
nal, which it was sought to get recognized, a conscious aspect. For 
instance, the honest man was not ordinarily conscious of his honesty. 
He merely acted in that way. But the impulse to stand out as honest 
in an exemplary way prompted one, when he heard of the dishonesty 
of another, to react with abhorrence. Sometimes this seemed like a too 
ready belief in another’s dishonesty, as if the impulse to appear to be 
exemplary in honesty got the best of cautious fairness to the person 
accused, 

While many social attitudes were not clearly conscious to those actu- 
ated by them, some were held as cherished beliefs and emphasized as 
principles of action. For instance, loyalty was emphasized as a prin- 
ciple of action, and there was a pronounced belief in family loyalty, 
neighbourhood loyalty, loyalty to one’s church, loyalty to one’s political 
party. A man was expected to stick to his own home and not to go 
into other people’s homes or allow other people to come into his except 
according to the neighbourhood customs of social intercourse. A man 
was expected to “stick up for” his neighbourhood. It was a prevailing 
belief that the church member “‘should stick to his own church.” This 
loyalty to church, like that to family and to neighbourhood, was in- 
tensified by the reaction of the community against one who showed a 
conspicuous lack of it and also by the individual’s reaction upon the 
community under the impulse for recognition. Because the com- 
munity approved of a man who showed an attitude of loyalty to his 
church, church members aimed to be conspicuous for loyalty. And be- 
cause the community disapproved of sectarianism going beyond certain 
limits, that is, to the point of “talking down” another sect or members 
thereof, church members who aimed to be exemplary citizens avoided 
such behaviour and maintained a dignified loyalty. A man was ex- 
pected to be loyal to his party and not to “go whipping around and 
voting one ticket one year and another the next.” To have voted for 
the candidates of another party even once spoiled a man’s chances of 
being nominated to office by his own party. Because of the prevailing 
belief in partisanship, exemplary citizens were careful to maintain a 
dignified loyalty to party and to avoid the extreme partisanship that 
was socially disapproved. Thus there was a belief in loyalty as a prin- 
ciple of action and this led to particular cherished loyalties. 

The underlying attitude of loyalty was related to another funda- 
mental disposition—self-restraint. Self-restraint led not only to the 
denial of impulses that had to do with material things but also to the 


ad) RURAL HERITAGE 


denial of impulses that had to do with other people. A man should 
deny a liking for other women and be loyal to his wife; should deny 
a liking for other children and be loyal to his own; should deny im- 
pulses to be attracted by another church, or another neighbourhood or 
another party. So loyalty involved self-restraint. It might also in- 
volve the more conspicuous feature of praising wife or children before 
others or “talking up’ the church or the neighbourhood. This was 
especially marked among those who aimed to be conspicuous for 
loyalty. The relation of loyalty to self-restraint comes out especially 
in loyalty toa spouse. The prevailing attitude was that no matter how 
difficult to live with a woman might be, her husband must continue to 
live with her, and no matter how difficult to live with a man might be, 
his wife must continue to live with him. Unless husband or wife was 
guilty of wrong relations with one of another sex, each must “bear and 
forbear” and “‘try to get along with” the other. Let one in sympathy 
with an aggrieved husband recount the trials of living with the wife 
and he would meet with the short rejoinder, “Well, he married her!” 
That settled it. What was now required of him was to endure the 
woman he married. And, if it was the wife who was aggrieved, 
“Well, she married him!” settled it for her. She must live with him 
and endure him. There was abundant sympathy for the aggrieved 
party. The gossip of the community pretty thoroughly thrashed out 
the question as to which was to be pitied and the pity was genuine. 
But no matter how much he or she was pitied, the attitude was that the 
aggrieved must live with the other and do the best he or she could. 
Which was to be pitied was decided not according to justice as it would 
appear to a sensitive and discriminating person but according to the 
social attitudes; then out of the fundamental disposition of self- 
restraint of the community came the reaction. The aggrieved must re- 
press his or her impulses to get away from a situation fraught with 
annoyance and suppression and endure the other. Thus loyalty, in the 
last analysis, had a connection with a disposition developed primarily 
by economic conditions—self-restraint. When economic conditions 
changed and self-restraint weakened, so did loyalty. Prosperity caused 
children to be brought up less to self-restraint and more to self- 
indulgence. These self-indulgent young people in their courting “went 
with those who would give them the best time.” In choosing a mate 
for life they were quite apt to choose from this attitude. That is, they 
were thinking what they would get out of the relation for themselves. 
Because of this lack of self-restraint, there was more apt to be griev- 


SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT = 213 


ances after marriage and less apt to be loyalty in the old sense than in 
the old days of rearing in self-restraint. 

The shaping of the characters of the people in accordance with the 
social attitudes was fostered by clergymen through giving the attitudes 
a great variety of prestige connections, among these a connection with 
some large purpose.” For instance, diaries kept by people of the early 
days contain fragments of sermons glorifying certain behaviour and 
concluding with a peroration something like this: ‘When the pioneers 
travelled westward to hew out of the wilderness their farms and their 
-homes it was with a faith in God that enabled them to overcome every 
hardship. In that faith the settler toiled on when otherwise he would 
have faltered. And his wife stood by his side with a power of self- 
sacrifice equal to his; for she knew they were laying the foundations 
of a commonwealth.” Here we see the attitudes of self-restraint and 
loyalty associated with the large purpose of laying the foundations of 
a commonwealth. Now, of course, the pioneer, as he felled the trees 
and cut the logs for his cabin, did not think of laying the foundations 
of acommonwealth. He thought only of building his log house. His 
thoughts seldom went beyond the horizon of his neighbourhood. But, 
under the inspiration of the preacher, the social consciousness did, at 
times, extend beyond the neighbourhood and the community and this 
stretch of imagination put new enthusiasm into the attitudes thus 
glorified. 

The attitudes tended to become more clearly conscious before the 
opposite behaviour in another, because of the tendency to justify one’s 
behaviour. This inevitably made one more or less conscious of the 
attitudes underlying the challenged behaviour. When, in the second 
period, in spite of justifications the traditional behaviour began to 
change in response to changed economic and other conditions, the 
changes were not deliberated and consciously adopted. People drifted 
into them, When parents who were opposed to their children’s danc- 
ing finally yielded they yielded without any deliberation. To be sure 
they found some “reason” for their consent, just as previously they 
had had some justification of their refusal. When a line of conduct 
had become prevalent it was as easy to find reasons for it as before 
it had been easy to find reasons against it. For, in the absence of any 
definite knowledge of the conditions of development of personality and 
of social progress, attitudes are not developments from an ideal of 
personality and progress so much as mere ways of reacting, justified on 
the ground that we always have done so or that everybody is doing so 


214 RURAL HERITAGE 


or that influential people are doing so or that we have been taught 
that we should do so. When behaviour contrary to that of the tradi- 
tional attitudes is becoming prevalent, those who are particularly defi- 
ant of the new behaviour are apt to be those who have held positions 
as guardians of- morality, as school teachers and the clergy. Thus 
an old school teacher remarked: “I tell you it’s hard to live through 
as many changes as I have.’’ She meant it was hard to see the at- 
titudes of people changing all around her and still maintain her own 
unchanged and thereby lose the prestige she had enjoyed as an ex- 
emplar of approved behaviour. 


SociAL CONFLICT 


Social consciousness was most intense when attitudes conflicted. 
The essential conflicts were between underlying social forms or 
dispositions that involved contrary elemental tendencies. Essential 
among these essential conflicts was that between dispositions which 
seek satisfaction of self regardless of the satisfaction of others and the 
sympathetic disposition which is satisfied only by having the objects 
of its attention satisfied and happy.* The conflict between these two 
classes of dispositions extended through all aspects of social organ- 
ization. 


CONFLICT IN FAmMILy RELATIONS 


The sexual and economic domination of the husband, supported by 
religious and legal tradition, resulted in a more or less annoying sub- 
jection of the wife. In addition to burdening her with the care of an 
unnecessarily large family, this subjection threw upon her shoulders a 
burden of farm work that taxed the strength even of the strongest. 
The husband was apt to be centred in the accumulation of wealth 
rather than in the happiness of his wife. A wife, moved more strongly 
by the sympathetic disposition than her acquisitive husband, craved 
other satisfactions than that of accumulation and the result was a lack 
of congeniality and, often, a pronounced difference of opinion in which 
conflict was avoided only by the wife yielding to the husband. 

Their attitudes to the children also conflicted. The father insisted 
that the boy work to the limit of endurance. Even if the boy showed 
unusual mental ability, the father saw no reason why he should not 
look forward to the life of a farmer or to going into the local 


SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT = 215 


bank or into the store as a clerk, while the mother often desired him 
to “aim higher.” * Neither of them necessarily understood the child, 
but the mother wanted to do more for him than the father. The 
mother’s sympathetic inclination might be merely to adore and indulge 
her children,® though this was uncommon in the rural parts, or it might 
be an attitude of intelligent understanding. The inevitable result of 
a difference of attitude on the part of parents toward the children was a 
conflict in their rearing. Essentially it was a conflict between the ego- 
istic disposition of the father and the sympathetic disposition of the 
mother. 


CoNFLICT IN Economic RELATIONS | 


In the early period farmers were overwhelmed with work and often 
were dependent on the help of neighbours, and there was always a con- 
flict between the disposition to help others and the disposition to be 
centred on one’s own work. Some farmers calculated the time 
another worked for them and gave the exact equivalent in return, 
while others generously disdained any such small business. These 
two dispositions, the acquisitive and the sympathetic, conflicted in 
the same man, but the tendency was for either the one or the other 
characteristically to mark the behaviour of an individual. The sym- 
pathetic farmer, in his dealings with another, did not go as far in 
shrewd and sharp practice as the unsympathetic. He did not work 
his wife and boys so hard. 

The tendency in the giving of help to give only as much as had been 
received developed as the neighbourhood consciousness weakened. As 
the farmer felt less dependent on his neighbours, he became more in- 
clined to think only of the particular service rendered and not to let 
himself be moved by a neighbourly attitude of reciprocal helpfulness. 
He became more inclined to think of his neighbours as looking out for 
themselves, first and last, and to think of himself as entitled to do the 
same. If a farmer appeared genuinely generous in his behaviour then , 
the tendency was either tentatively to accept his attitude and react in 
the same spirit or selfishly to take advantage of it. 


CoNFLICT IN SOCIAL RELATIONS 


In the casual relations of the neighbourhood and in the social gath- 
erings there was always the contrast between the kindly man or woman 


216 RURAL HERITAGE 


with a cheery word for everybody, and the self-centred or proud in- 
dividual, between one who could ‘make himself agreeable’ and one 
who “always was rubbing people the wrong way.” The social favour- 
ite was the one who could cheer another with his hearty laugh, who 
laughed whether he felt like it or not and habitually sought to make 
others happy. Often this sort of man was strongly disapproved of 
by the man bent on acquisition of wealth, while the former would 
good-naturedly joke at the latter’s self-centred characteristics: “He 
wouldn’t stop and laugh for fear he would lose a minute.” 


CoNFLICT IN POLITICAL RELATIONS 


In the early period, as later, there were two types of politicians, 
the few who were genuinely interested in the welfare of their con- 
stituents and those who were primarily seeking a career and self- 
aggrandizement. Self-seeking politicians cultivated the sympathetic 
appeal. No appeal of the candidate for office, on election day, was 
more moving than this, whispered close to the voter as he passed into 
the polling place: ‘Remember me to-day, John. I’ve got to earn 
bread for my children.” The successful politician was genial and 
jovial to meet, a magnanimous opponent and generous in acknowledg- 
ing the help of supporters in winning an office. While these charac- 
teristics were cultivated as a means of winning office, they were most 
winningly displayed by men of a genuinely sympathetic disposition 
because in such men they had the aspect of sincerity. The politician 
of this disposition found himself in conflict with the self-seeking poli- 
tician. The conflict between Lincoln and Douglas, in its deeper signi- 
ficance,® was repeated in a small way, again and again, throughout the 
rural districts. 


ConFLICT IN ECCLESIASTICAL RELATIONS 


The cultivation of the sympathetic disposition was a subject of fre- 
quent exhortation on the part of the clergy. For instance: “He 
whose tender mercies are over all His works hath placed a principle 
in the human mind, which incites to exercise goodness towards every 
living creature ; and this being singly attended to, people become tender- 
hearted and sympathizing, but when frequently and totally rejected, 
the mind becomes shut up in a contrary disposition.” * In spite of 
exhortations to cultivate a sympathetic disposition, however, because 


= | 


SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT = 217 


egoistic attitudes predominated in family, economic and other relations, 
and because the church championed these traditional relations its in- 
fluence was largely on the side of the egoistic attitudes.§ The minister 
championed the subjection of wife to husband. He did not particu- 
larly emphasize sympathy in economic relations, for the shrewd and 
successful farmers were pillars of the church and were not conspicuous 
for sympathy. Furthermore, sympathetic farmers were sometimes 
inclined to conviviality, instead of to that extreme austerity for which 
the church stood. However, the church had its sympathetic members 
and their pronounced sympathy brought them into conflict with those 
in whom egoistic attitudes predominated. In the church conflicts re- 
ferred to in a preceding chapter, these sympathetic members pleaded 
with the angry belligerents “for the love of Christ to forget their 
differences.” 


SELF-REALIZATION 


The personality of the farmer was a result of the attitudes developed 
by a long day of action succeeded by a brief period of relaxation at its 
close. There was a diurnal rhythm from the processes of action 
to the processes of relaxation. I worked, in the second period, with 
one of these old farmers of the first and noted the attitudes and ideas 
involved in this rhythm of personality. At the beginning of the day 
he had the day’s work “on his mind” as a leading idea to be corrobo- 
rated by the working out of all the details. He wanted to see his work 
done. When in this working mood anything that interfered with its 
accomplishment was inhibited—even the love pats of his daughter; 
all the joys that would be welcomed at the close of the day were swept 
aside. In the process of work, however, his attention frequently 
lapsed. His movements often slowed down. In these intervals of 
_ lapse ideas passed before his mind and he talked of his neighbours, 
their holdings and crops, and the reactions to these assertion-provoking 
ideas were shunted into his process of work and quickened his move- 
ments. Then came another lapse. He talked of himself, of his fidel- 
ity to his word, of the dishonesty of some people and those ideas in 
turn quickened his work movements. As the day wore on this type of 
ideas diminished. The lapses of attention and of work movements 
were more pronounced. A different type of ideas began to appear. 
There were thoughts of his home and the peace-giving ideas of his reli- 
gion. Finally these ideas had their way with him. His day’s work 


218 RURAL HERITAGE 


was done and he turned homeward with a feeling of satisfaction. In 
this expansive mood he sought the companionship of his wife and 
family, told of the work done, enjoyed her satisfaction at his work and 
shared hers at her own. The wife’s commendation and caresses gave 
the desired stimulus to the rhythm from the tension of the day’s work 
to the relaxation of evening. When telling of the day’s work the 
farmer omitted annoying experiences not in harmony with the mood of 
relaxation. Or, if these experiences were very pronounced he told of 
his failures, that his wife’s sympathy might bring relief. In the eve- 
ning he gathered his children around him or read his Bible. Thus the 
parental tendency, the gregarious tendency which finds satisfaction in 
a large family and other tendencies combined to reinforce the expan- 
sive mood. ‘The evening meal was apt to be a little more aesthetic than 
others, that is, to include little delicacies, to be eaten more leisurely and 
with more attention to “manners.” The farmer was less apt to want 
tension-causing foods, as meat, at the evening meal. Thus in his 
working mood, assertive ideas and attitudes moved him and quickened 


his work movements, while, in his expansive mood, sympathetic ideas - 


and attitudes contributed to the realization of this side of his person- 
ality. He thus, in a certain sense, unconsciously gathered up the so- 
cial attitudes and experiences in the processes of his own self- 
realization. His capacity for self-realization depended in good part 
on these materials furnished by his environment. 

The conflict of dispositions which we traced in the preceding sec- 
tions centred in the family. There relations were most intimate and 
the annoyance of conflict was keenest. The farmer could endure with 
equanimity a grasping neighbour or a slandering neighbour if only his 
family relations were harmonious. Consequently it was in the family 
that people really tried, more or less, to understand one another and to 
live harmoniously. In spite of the strenuous economic life of the 
family and the rigorous discipline of the father, there was a good deal 
of mutual adjustment for the sake of peace and contentment. That 
is, the family was the sphere in which sympathy, in the broad sense of 
the term, was most effectively worked out. Some one figure, usu- 
ally the mother, sometimes the father, stood for this ideal of sympathy 
before the other members and was looked to as the adjuster of dif- 
ferences, the tranquillizer, the fountain of love that settled the troubled 
waters of family life. And she or he, in turn, often had to look up 
for strength to the unseen source of love and tranquillity. Sometimes, 
however, it was this tranquillizer in the lesser difficulties who sank 


SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND CONFLICT 219 


under a severe bereavement and then the more forceful, positive char- 
acter became the family’s strong tower. 

The family cultivated sympathy as the background of family life. 
Assertiveness is an experience of tension, as compared with the relaxa- 
tion of sympathy. So parents constantly tried to temper their asser- 
tion with love. The father punished in love and not in anger, or tried 
to. This attitude was extended to neighbourhood relations. The min- 
ister admonished sinners in love, at least he professed to, and tried to 
make practice accord with profession. Instead of harshly condemning 
the self-indulgence or laziness of a neighbour, the farmer tried to school 
himself to pity him, as more in accord with the Christian spirit and 
more satisfying to his own peace of soul. 

However, sympathy in community relations was less a matter of 
understanding adjustment than in the family and more a process of 
a sympathetic sharing of the emotions of neighbours. The rural per- 
son was one of deep feeling in that his or her attitudes centred around 
the family and the neighbours so that all the force of the impulses 
of the man or woman was expressed in a comparatively few deep- 
seated attitudes. It is for this reason among others that a bereave- 
ment in a neighbour’s family stirred the emotions more deeply than 
such an occurrence does in a city. A person of pronounced rural 
attitudes is sometimes shocked at the unfeeling references of city 
people to a bereaved family. Where people have a great variety of 
social contacts and distractions, a particular stimulus has less chance 
of stirring a powerful and absorbing emotion than where there are no 
distractions. As economic and social inequality increased among 
neighbours this emotional sympathy diminished. 

In the early neighbourhood the farmer and his wife had two effective 
means of easing the annoyances resulting from family conflict and 
neighbourhood differences. These were the routine of daily work and 
religion. Out on his land by himself the farmer could vent his feel- 
ings in his work and in her housework or garden the wife could do 
the same. It was not that they could work and so ease an emotional 
state if they felt disposed but that they had to work, so that the emo- 
tional state had to give way. That is, the necessity of constant work 
took their minds off themselves and so eased the strain of resentment 
or self-pity. So there developed a sort of practical attitude toward 
moods and grievances: “Go to work and forget it.” If there was 
any person that the typical farmer or farmer’s wife had no patience 
with it was the moody man or woman, who wilfully nursed a grievance 


220 RURAL HERITAGE 


and would not talk about it, who acted the martyr “but kept up a 
devil of a thinking.” We have said that the farmer was more or less 
given to grouches. This was more true during the long winter when 
there was comparatively little to do and when the digestive organs of 
the hearty eater got out of order than during the working months. 
But of course isolation is more favourable to the nursing of grievances 
than an environment where it is easy to enjoy social distractions. 

Another means of escaping the annoyances of conflict was religion. 
The person unjustly treated tried to find in his or her religion a real- 
ization of impulses denied satisfaction in the family and neighbourhood 
life. Because the economic attitudes had so essential a place even in 
the family life, and because they represented for the most part 
acquisitiveness, assertiveness, submission, pugnacity, and crowded into 
a corner generosity, cheeriness, a sense of protecting love, an apprecia- 
tion of beauty, the ideas and beliefs of religion most fondly clung 
to by the sensitive person were those that gave these sympathetic and 
aesthetic satisfactions. So there was always a fundamental tendency 
to oppose the material to the non-material, the secular to the sacred, 
the worldly to the spiritual life. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


ECONOMIC INTERPRETATIONS 


HE preceding chapters have suggested the paramount impor- 
tance of adjustment to the material environment as the essen- 
tial process determining the attitudes of the farmer. The 

conditions repeatedly cited as essential in the determination of distinc- 
tively rural attitudes are: the uncertainty of the fruition of crops due 
to the uncertainty of the weather ; the close contact of the farmer with 
nature and his constant exposure to uncertain weather ; his isolation; 
his independence due to ownership of the means of production; the 
confining nature of his occupation; the necessity of constant action, 
often of excessive exertion. All these are material conditions except 
isolation which, however, was a necessary result of adjustment to the 
material environment. 

Rural adjustment was, to be sure, conditioned not only by existing 
conditions but also by attitudes and beliefs inherited from the past. 
But these were, in the last analysis, determined by material conditions 
of the past and tended to change in adaptation to the existing condi- 
tions. Even the submission of the wife, and religious submission, as 
we saw, became less abject in the course of adaptation to the new con- 
ditions of American life. Those conditions gave a practical turn even 
to attitudes that had developed in reaction to the idea of a future life. 

The attitude of adherence to custom was itself due to economic 
conditions. That is, the essential causes of the adherence were eco- 
nomic. Take isolation. There were families which seemed to prefer 
isolation for its own sake and there were others which wanted it to 
safeguard their children against religious beliefs contrary to their own, 
but the prevailing reason for isolation seems to have been the lure of 
wealth to be gained in the remote parts. The unceasing work, also, 
made for adherence to custom. This was due, likewise, to economic 
conditions. The farmer’s work drove him and the wife was even more 
driven. They had “no time to think” unless forced to it by some 
crisis. The confining nature of the farmer’s work also made for 


adherence to custom. So did his economic independence. These are 
221 


222 RURAL HERITAGE 


economic conditions that have made for adherence to custom among 
rural populations generally. In New York, as shown in Chapter IV, 
there were also particular physical conditions that accentuated adher- 
ence to custom, as the wide extent of hill country and the humid 
atmosphere and cloudy sky. Furthermore, it was economic conditions 
that caused the more enterprising and restless of the young New 
York farmers to migrate west, thereby making the population left 
behind still more conservative. 

To be sure farmers differed in the degree of adherence to custom 
even where economic conditions were pretty much the same. These in- 
dividual differences no environmental influence accounts for. But the 
unusually intelligent farmer profited by his intelligence in a material 
way. It was by successful farming that intelligence manifested itself 
and was generally accredited. However, most farmers quite blindly 
persisted in the customary ways of satisfying their economic interests. 
Farmers saw new pests and diseases injuring their crops without doing 
anything but complain until the adoption of a remedy had been given an 
impetus by certain leading farmers. This adherence to custom has 
been urged as disproving the economic interpretation, but it was due 
not to the farmer’s indifference to his economic interests but to his per- 
sistence in old ways of seeking his economic interests. In his igno- 
rance he did not know what his economic interests, under new 
conditions, really were. 

Certain attitudes of fundamental importance in early rural life were 
determined by economic conditions. We cited attitudes that developed 
out of the uncertainty of the weather. The influence of these perme- 
ated every part of the social organization—family, community, reli- 
gion, politics, education. Even the farmer’s relation to his wife and 
children was more or less economic and his attitude to them largely 
determined their attitudes to him. To be sure their relations were 
a good deal determined by tradition but the traditional attitudes were 
those of a farming community. Sympathy of course entered into 
family behaviour, but the prevailing behaviour was not determined by 
sympathy. This fact came out incidentally in impatient criticisms of 
behaviour, for instance, ‘““A farmer will work his boys to death and then 
if one gets stomach trouble, he’ll spend a fortune trying to get him 
cured.” That is, the farmer’s attitude was ordinarily determined 
by his economic interests, but, on occasion, he let his sympathies have 
their way with him even to the extent of spending a good deal of the 
hard-earned money. So fundamental was the economic determin- 





ECONOMIC INTERPRETATIONS 223 


ism in the family that when economic conditions so changed that chil- 
dren failed to develop the customary attitudes, this resulted in marked 
changes in community, religious and juristic attitudes. Because of the 
economic determinism, as well as for other reasons, all classes of atti- 
tudes of rural character are more or less intimately related. This is 
true of other than rural populations. The problem of the recon- 
struction of personality is, then, not a matter of correcting any attitude 
separately but of considering all as a closely related whole. 

The moral standards of the neighbourhood adapted the farmer’s 
family to its material situation. Of course there are aspects of family 
and neighbourhood behaviour that cannot be thus explained, as the sym- 
pathy of neighbour for neighbour in sickness, disaster, bereavement. 
But the prevailing behaviour was not determined by sympathy. 
Furthermore, the sympathy that was customary fitted the sympathetic 
individual to survive, for it won him friends who were ready to help 
him in time of need. The moral standards of the community for the 
most part fitted the family to survive in the struggle for subsistence. 
Furthermore, the men who were held up as moral examplars, who had 
the influence in the community, were the men who excelled in the 
qualities that make a man an economic success. 

The theology inherited by the rural districts emphasized crucifying 
the things of the flesh. But to the farmer the flesh meant the appe- 
tites and desires that interfered with the self-restraint necessary for 
efficient work. While the exponents of religion emphasized its sub- 
jective side, as opposed to the objective and material, to the farmer 
religion did not by any means mean a renunciation of wealth or 
wealth getting. Hence, though the exponents of religion would frown 
on an economic interpretation of religion, that interpretation rests 
on the attitudes of the mass of farmers, not on those of the exponents 
of religion. The religious attitudes and beliefs of the farmer had 
these economic aspects. He believed the church was necessary to the 
peace and order of a population that was more or less self-willed in its 
pursuit of wealth. He believed the church made the community a 
better place to live in and thus indirectly increased the value of his 
land. He believed it helped him in bringing up his children, partic- 
ularly in inculcating the self-restraint that was necessary if they were 
to grow up to be responsible workers. He believed God prospered 
in a material way the man who supported the church. He knew that 
religion helped him become resigned to disappointments because of a 
bad season or bad luck. In contrast with these objective aspects of 


224. RURAL HERITAGE 


religion there was its subjective aspect. Essential in the religious life 
was the idea of another life in which man would rest from his labours. 
So religion was opposed to the material life in that it was subjective, 
not objective; it was a means of getting away from that sphere of life 
that had to do with work for material ends. So it was said, ‘““A man 
cannot pay for his religion.” It was entirely different from what men 
pay for. It was an attitude to the unseen, the future life, and it did 
not have to do, primarily, with the material and objective things of 
this life. It was a point of departure for a series of ideas subjectively 
determined and more or less opposed to the objective world. And the 
beings of the future were thought of as non-material, as contrasted 
with those of objective experience. Religion was a means of satisfy- 
ing people about-the future life, particularly by giving assurance of 
a reunited family. However, religion was not divorced from the 
economic life. Men paid for church services and there was an increas- 
ing emphasis on the material aspects of these services. It was an ax- 
iom that a prosperous rural church requires a prosperous rural com- 
munity. It was the prosperous farmer, whose religion was a practical 
matter of church attendance and respectable living, rather than of a 
spiritual relation with the unseen, who had the influence in the church. 
In the second and third periods as the farmer became less solitary and 
more absorbed in his business and social contacts and his material 
enjoyments, he became more objectively and less subjectively minded. 
The unseen world faded more into the background, which was one 
reason for the decreasing interest in doctrine and the increasing in- 
terest in the social and aesthetic aspects of church activity. But the 
minister still taught that God required a man to act according to his 
conscience. And conscientious behaviour included acting according 
to many attitudes of economic origin. While, therefore, the religious 
life was a means of escape from economic and material experience, 
there were these connections: (1) The hardships of the economic 
life gave a zest for religious experience; (2) religious experiences re- 
acted on the economic life and conduced to health, prosperity and 
righteous living, including a living up to economic obligations; (3) 
the material results of the economic life were indispensable for the 
support of church services and the latter seemed to be indispensable to 
the religious life; (4) the church enhanced the prosperity of the 
community and a prosperous community in turn made a prosperous 
church. 

The farmer’s attitude to education was economic. The purpose 





ECONOMIC INTERPRETATIONS 225 


of rural education was to give the child those rudiments that could 
not be given in the home and which he or she would need as a farmer 
or a farmer’s wife; and the expense of the district school was kept 
as low as possible. The farmer was proud of the American public 
school system but his pride was due to the fact that under the difficult 
pioneer conditions it provided free public education for all, not in the 
fact that education was more than of the most meagre kind. And 
such it has remained because the farmer’s attention has centred not 
on education but on taxes. The essential attitude of public education 
was discipline, which was a transmuted economic attitude. Discipline 
made education adaptive in a period when economic efficiency required 
constant and extreme exertion in clearing land and making it produc- 
tive. However, education, like religion, had a subjective side. There 
was a feeling, especially among women, that education should foster 
culture, that, among other things, it should increase one’s capacity for a 
spiritual interpretation of the Bible. There was also a beginning of 
education for prestige and the more prosperous farmers sent their 
boys and girls to private academies. This subjective aspect of educa- 
tion expanded in the second and third periods. The New York State 
Grange passed resolutions emphasizing the importance of a cultural 
education. But, after all, much of the so-called cultural education 
was for the purpose of winning objective evidences of superiority, 
as degrees, marks, prizes. In this it approached the economic em- 
phasis on material things. 

The intellectual attitudes of the farmer adapted him to his material 
situation. His ingenuity was born of necessity. His solitary life 
strengthened the tendency to act on his own ideas, not to seek 
advice or to discuss opinions with others. This mental narrowness 
was still further encouraged by his active life. Aside from occasions 
when he positively had to stop and think, his inclination was not to 
think but to act according to habit and to follow rules and formulas. 
When he did get interested in a new idea he did not take time really 
to broaden his mind but was absorbed in its practical aspects. His 
position as head of a family enterprise made him extremely careful 
to guard his authority, consequently he was averse to owning that 
he was mistaken. Because of the setness of his ideas and because 
of his position as head of an enterprise he was given to argument 
rather than to frank discussion. These attitudes adapted an agricul- 
tural people to its material environment, until changing conditions 
made the mental setness unadaptive. The prevailing attitudes shaped 


226 RURAL HERITAGE 


the minds not only of the farming population but to a certain extent 
also of business and professional men. 

One of the most striking series of facts for the economic interpreta- 
tion is the fundamental role of self-restraint in rural development. 
This disposition was an adaptation to the requirement of constant exer- 
tion and endurance of hardship. It expressed itself, as we have seen, 
in several very important attitudes, particularly in thrift, in an austrere 
religious attitude, in an attitude for rigorous law enforcement and in an 
attitude for loyalty in every social relationship. Each of these funda- 
mental attitudes in turn differentiated into several particular attitudes. 
Thrift differentiated into an attitude for saving money, for saving 
products, for frugal living, for saving time and steps. Austerity 
differentiated into attitudes against particular indulgences and into 
attitudes against classes and sects which indulged in forbidden pleas- 
ures. The attitude for rigorous law enforcement likewise made 
against the self-indulgence that weakened the worker, and also against 
the wilfulness that interfered with the peaceful pursuit of industry. 
The attitude for loyalty differentiated into a variety of loyal attitudes. 
So from this main taproot of self-restraint, due primarily to eco- 
nomic conditions, there ramified a complicated series of essential atti- 
tudes. When economic conditions changed, in the second period, 
self-restraint weakened and with it every attitude that ramified from 
it. Self-restraint also gave rise to a variety of ideas about life and 
institutions. Civilization was defined as “organized self-restraint.” 
Conduct was conceived as determined not by an ideal of development 
of personality but by the ideal of self-restraint. When the attitude of 
self-restraint weakened, all these ideas began to lose their authority. 

The importance of the economic factors runs through the entire 
development we are considering. The settlers’ life was a struggle 
for subsistence. Their habits and attitudes were those that adapted 
them to win subsistence and to survive with a minimum of the comforts 
of life. Their industry, thrift, self-restraint seem to us extreme 
merely by comparison with our own deficiency in these traits, which, 
in turn, is due to the fact that we are not “so hard put to it” as they 
were. Hard necessity centred their attention on subsistence. The 
succeeding generations inherited the habits and attitudes of the first, 
though more comfortably situated, and there was a conflict between 
those who would doggedly maintain the attitudes that had made their 
fathers strong to survive and those who would “let down a little.” 
But did wealth occupy a smaller place in the considerations of the 


ECONOMIC INTERPRETATIONS 227 


farmers grown more comfortable? If its production did its consump- 
tion had a larger place. They inherited the wealth accumulated by 
the previous generations. Because of improvements in means of 
communication they lived less isolated lives, and they did not have to 
work so incessantly. In their rising standard of living they imitated 
the business and professional classes of the villages and cities. Their 
essential disposition ceased to be the acquisitive and the rivalrous 
disposition became more conspicuous. They did not want to feel in- 
ferior to the village folks and the way to do away with this feeling 
was to “have things as good as village folks have.” Finally, what 
gave the impetus to the recent great development of agricultural 
organization? Needless to say it was the desire of farmers to improve 
their economic condition. 


CHAPTER XXV 
OUR RURAL HERITAGE AND THE NATIONAL LIFE 


UR rural heritage has profoundly affected our national 
psychology. This is true of all classes of attitudes described 
in the preceding chapters. The pioneer conditions in- 

creased the influence of woman in the home and the community. So 
did the conditions of settled agricultural life and this was one of the 
influences that made for the emancipation of woman and for the 
final achievement of political equality. The rural attitude of austere 
self-restraint and the resulting rigorous standard of morality also 


have affected the national life, as seen in the legislation against various © 


forms of vice. The vigorous attitude for the enforcement of law 
likewise is rural; so is our predilection for formulas and conventional 
phrases in our thinking; so is our keen partisanship that has thus far 
maintained the two party system. The widely prevalent belief in 
special providence and the pronounced regard for the Sabbath also 
savour of rural life. It is not possible here to make a comprehensive 
survey of the possible effects of our rural heritage on the national life. 
I shall confine the analysis to economic attitudes. A thorough-going 
analysis is impossible for this line of research is new and we have not 
yet developed an adequate technique for investigating the dissemination 
of attitudes. All we can do is to indicate similarities between rural 
attitudes and those of business, the professions and industry and cite 
facts which lead us to believe that attitudes passed from rural culture 
into the national life. 

In considering this transmutation of rural attitudes, we must bear 
in mind that, in spite of the development of transportation, manufac- 
turing and commerce and the resulting growth of urban population, 
a considerable part of the population of all the nations still lives under 
rural conditions. In the rural districts are born a considerable pro- 
portion of those who later go to the cities. They carry to the cities 
rural attitudes and, though they acquire city ways, the rural attitudes 
have a pronounced effect on business, professional and industrial life. 
And the business, professional and industrial classes are by no means 

228 


—) 


OUR RURAL HERITAGE AND NATIONAL LIFE 229 


confined to the cities. A large number of factories are scattered 
through the rural districts, and there are many business and profes- 
sional men. In spite of the fact that these classes feel and emphasize 
their differences from the farmer, their behaviour betrays rural atti- 
tudes. 


RurAL ATTITUDES IN BUSINESS 


The extreme individualism of American business betrays a rural 
influence. The early farmer, though he did not produce a great deal 
to sell, was, to a certain extent, a profit-seeker. He took a chance on 
the seasons. With the extension of railroads he produced more for 
the market. He got his supplies from the store, in the spring, on six 
months’ credit. When immigration increased the supply of labour he 
hired farm labourers. A sense of freedom thus to bring capital and 
labour together on the land and take the chance of profit or loss was 
one of the most cherished ideals of American democracy. The farmer 
maintained that any man of enterprise could take up land and becomeé 
an independent producer; that those who preferred to work for others 
did so because they lacked enterprise. Now many of the early man- 
ufacturers were also farmers or had been farmers before they became 
manufacturers. Like the farmer they employed only a few men; 
and these men, when business in the mill was slack, worked on the 
farms. These manufacturers maintained that any man of enterprise 
could save money, borrow what more he needed and start in manufac- 
turing. His business was his by right of creation, to run as he 
pleased. He worked with his men and his relations with them were 
friendly ; they did not think of challenging his right to run his business 
as he saw fit. 

This early business attitude was carried over into modern business. 
It came to determine the behaviour of the head of a manufacturing 
plant employing twenty-five thousand men, indeed, even the behaviour 
of the head of a great trust employing five hundred thousand. Manu- 
facturers now produce for a world-wide market. Their business 
measures affect a great variety of producers of raw materials, vast pop- 
ulations of consumers and an army of workmen. Yet they maintain 
the ancient right to run their business as they see fit with exclusive at- 
tention to the profits of stockholders. These practically have no voice 
in the management of a great business so that the right maintained is 
practically that of a little group. The business man may be cognizant 


230 RURAL HERITAGE 


of the complexity of the social relations of his business, but his 
attitude is, in the last analysis, that of running the business for the 
profits of the comparatively few owners, not for the public welfare, 
It is difficult to explain this individualism except as a survival from 
a period of small business. The justifications given for the individual- 
istic viewpoint imply the conditions of small business of a past age when 
factories were scattered through the rural districts and business men 
were recruited from agriculturalists. 

The persistence of the individualistic viewpoint after business had 
developed is to be expected when we consider that business men are 
creatures of habit generally, as are other men. Business men accept 
without question the attitudes and beliefs of their vocation. Long 
absorption in a business results in a mesh of habits and attitudes that 
determine behaviour. We make a great mistake in thinking that the 
business man is constantly reasoning from the point of view of his own 
profits and changing his methods and attitudes accordingly. He 
accepts the profit-seeking point of view of all business and, in his 
personal behaviour, acts from habit and attitude. Often this is as 
effective as clearly thoughtout action would be but it has its limita- 
tions.' Such behaviour is especially ineffective when the individual- 
istic viewpoint determines behaviour in situations that require a states- 
manlike grasp of the social significance of business. 

Another reason for the persistence of the attitude of small business 
is that people generally are in sympathy with that attitude. So public 
opinion supports big business in its traditional attitude. Why does 
the public take this attitude, in spite of the fact that it fits conditions 
of the past that no longer exist? The answer seems to be that the 
public is not cognizant of the change of conditions but reacts according 
to the individualistic viewpoint of the past. 

Implicit in the farmer’s individualistic viewpoint was the assumption 
that a man has a right to take advantage of another’s ignorance for 
his own advantage. A man does not have to deal with you. A man 
does not have to work for you. If he chooses to deal with you, you 
have a right to take full advantage of any superior intelligence or 
impressive power that you may have. If he chooses to work for you, 
you have a right to take advantage of his ignorance and of your 
impressive power as his employer to get all the work you can out of 
him. The harshness of this attitude was mitigated by another, that 
of “live and let live.” This meant considering in one’s dealings that 
others have to live as well as oneself. So the farmer, in offering 


ee 


OUR RURAL HERITAGE AND NATIONAL LIFE 231 


wages, would not offer less than a labourer could live on in the custom- 
ary way. This attitude passed into business and it was and is assumed 
that an employer has a right to use his superior intelligence and 
position for his own advantage in bargaining with workmen. In 
case of a dispute over wages he has only to prove that these are 
sufficient to enable workmen to live in the customary way. When 
workmen combine to resist this attitude and assert a right to live better 
and better this combination is termed “un-American.” It is main- 
tained that labour organization and a union rate of pay interfere with 
the sacred right of a workman to profit by his superior intelligence. 
But the real reason for the opposition is that the union interferes with 
what the employer regards as his own sacred right to profit, in bar- 
gaining with the individual labourer, by his superior position as an 
employer. 

Business men justify the various phases of the employer’s individual- 
istic viewpoint by secondary explanations. These reflect the conditions 
of small business and of agriculture. These various phases of the 
individualistic viewpoint have furnished a basis of mental and moral 
resemblance between farmers and business men so that farmers have 
tended to sympathize with business men in their differences with 
workmen, rather than with the workmen. 

Rural conditions accentuated the sanctity of property rights. In 
those early days when real and tangible property was the essential kind, 
the impulse to defend one’s ownership and to sympathize with others 
in the rightful defence of their ownership was very keen. This habit 
of mind? passed on into the culture of succeeding generations and 
was applied indiscriminately to all forms of property, which were de- 
fended with all the tenacity with which the farmer supported his right 
to a tree on the boundary line. Much property to-day is of such a kind 
as hardly justifies this unreflective, unqualified support of property 
rights. Monopolies charge exorbitant rates and thus increase earning 
power and then boards of directors increase the capitalization based 
on these earnings acquired at the expense of the public. These stock 
certificates are felt to have all the sanctity of other property. It is 
because the public reacts according to its traditional attitude to prop- 
erty, instead of analysing the particular situation. 

The farmer had a good deal of pride in his products and this attitude 
characterized also the artisans of the rural community and the early 
manufacturers. Later, profits rather than quality of product became 
the sign of achievement and there developed among business men a 


232 RURAL HERITAGE 


tendency to cheapen products whenever this would increase profits, 

Some of the attitudes of the business man in his treatment of his 
employés resemble rural attitudes and, at the same time, are so contrary 
to the real interests of the business man himself as to suggest the 
effect of the rural heritage. For instance, in the management of 
workmen, employers have assumed that men use initiative as a matter 
of course. Generally there has been little or no reason for such an 
assumption.2 .Men work mechanically and display little initiative. 
Now the early farmer was a man of initiative and expected his men 
to show the same trait, and often they did. So it was in the early 
small factory. Possibly it was in this way that the attitude came to 
pervade modern industry of expecting intelligent initiative on the part 
of workmen. Manufacturers assumed that workmen needed little 
instruction,* that their initiative could be relied on, in spite of the fact 
that this assumption was very evidently contrary to fact, except in the 
case of skilled workmen and workmen of extraordinary energy who 
reached positions of direction and supervision. The practice of giving 
workmen detailed directions in their work did not come until the rise 
of scientific management. 


RurAL ATTITUDES IN TRADE 


Farmers’ sons became storekeepers in the villages and cities. In 
their merchandising they followed rural attitudes. For instance, like 
the farmer, they despised the “tricks of the trader.” As an instance 
of this, when an increase in tariff duties raised the price of goods, 
there were merchants who would not raise the price of their stock 
on hand,—not until they began to sell the higher priced goods. This 
was not due to competition or to fear of public disapproval for the 
customer did not know what the merchant paid for his goods. It was 
due to the rural aversion to taking advantage of some subterfuge in 
order to make money. Later, when the race for wealth became more 
intense, the merchants were inclined to abandon rural attitudes that 
interfered with money-making. 


RuRAL ATTITUDES IN THE PROFESSIONS 


The farmer prided himself on his energy and skill in farming. The 
artisan, also, was proud of his craft knowledge and skill. The rural 
doctor and lawyer likewise were proud of their ability and this attitude 


_ 7. ee 


———_ 


OUR RURAL HERITAGE AND NATIONAL LIFE 333 


of pride in personal power, as distinguished from mere income, passed 
into the professions generally. Professional men especially have 
prided themselves on their knowledge and skill. This has always been 
so and is due partly to the difference between the work of professional 
and business men.® But it is due also to the effect of the rural attitude. 
‘In cities where professional men serve a large and more or less floating 
population, pride in skill has somewhat diminished and professional 
achievements are more and more measured according to a money 
standard. There is still pride in skill but there is also more pride 
in mere income than formally. This attitude was not entirely lacking 
in the rural community. The farmer was jealous of a neighbour who 
received a higher price for his products than he did, because this 
implied that the higher priced products were superior. But a mere 
money standard never prevailed in the rural parts as it does in cities. 
The emphasis was on personal worth, not on mere income. 


RuRAL ATTITUDES IN INDUSTRY 


The farmer was a manual workman and among workmen to-day 
one may see some of the attitudes that characterized the early farmer. 
Factory workmen were recruited from the rural districts and took with 
them their rural habits, including the long work day and the rural in- 
dividualism. Workmen are, like the farmer, self-centred. Until 
trained in the principles of unionism a workman claims the right to 
work for whom he sees fit, for whatever wage, whatever length of day 
and under whatever conditions he pleases. But as the farmer is finding 
this individualism unsuited to the conditions of modern industry so 
is the workman. 

Among the individualistic habits of workmen is that of rivalry in 
work. The farmer enjoyed seeing his boys rivalling one another in 
work because this meant a large output. This benefited the boys, who 
inherited the wealth accumulated by the father. Boys carried this 
habit of rivalry into work for employers. Employers benefited by 
this rivalry because it increased output. Workmen did not benefit 
but, in many cases, were injured physically and economically. In- 
dividual rivalry was unsuited to machine industry in which the em- 
ployer may instigate emulation among masses of workmen for his 
own profit. Hence one of the policies of organized labour became 
that of limiting output. 

Another individualistic habit in which workmen resemble farmers 


234 RURAL HERITAGE 


is stolid endurance. Go into a foundry and remark on the hard work 
of the men and the foreman will respond, “Oh, they can stand it. 
They’re used to it.’ He is but echoing the attitude of the workmen 
themselves. Their inclination is to hide weariness and stand up 
under their load. This attitude was wholesome enough when it ani- 
mated the farmer who owned his own instruments of production and 
could determine his load and stop when he pleased. But it is contrary 
to the welfare of factory workmen when it causes them to endure 


without complaint injurious working conditions that might be im- — 


proved. Workmen often are loath to support reforms on their own 
behalf because they foolishly feel that the demand for improved con- 
ditions would be a confession of personal weakness. But they 
are finding this attitude unsuited to the conditions of modern in- 
dustry and are inclining toward organization as a means of self- 
protection. . 

Another attitude that characterizes both farmers and workmen is a 
sense of the inexorable nature of things to which man must submit. 
Among the early farmers this attitude was particularly directed toward 
physical nature. In recent years, among farmers and workmen alike, 
it has been directed toward the economic system, for the rise of the 
complex system of modern industry has thrown a mystery over the 
distributive process for farmers and workmen alike.’ There are two 
types of reaction to this situation. The more intelligent farmers 
look to their co-operative organization and the more intelligent work- 
men to their labour organization to tell them what prices or wages they 
may in justice expect, and to teach them to understand the industrial 
system, in so far as it affects their interests. But the great mass of 
farmers and workmen are unorganized and maintain toward the 
processes of the industrial system the traditional attitude of resignation 
to the inevitable. 

This attitude becomes evident in connection with recurring business 
depressions. Farmers and workmen do not understand the processes 
of the business cycle. To them a depression is something mysterious, 
unavoidable, terrible in its effect on their lives but something that 
must be borne with resignation. The tendency of a depression to be 
widespread, to come gradually, to be preceded by rumours of the shut- 
ting down of this factory and that, adds to the feeling that it was inevi- 
table, that no human agencies were particularly to blame, that every- 
body is involved and all are suffering together and therefore no one 
should feel aggrieved. Obviously this attitude of farmers and work- 





OUR RURAL HERITAGE AND NATIONAL LIFE 235 


men prevents their inquiring into the causes of business cycles and the 
possibility of stabilizing business. 

Farmers and artisans once believed in luck and in supernatural 
influences on their work.8 This passed to factory workmen. But 
the development of machine industry in which the workman merely 
participates in mechanical operations has tended to eliminate this 
attitude. However, it has persisted in relations with the industrial 
system. Farmers often ascribe a rise in farm prices, and workmen 
sometimes ascribe a rise in wages to luck or special providence. 

The influence of rural attitudes on the behaviour of factory work- 
men has been noted by students of European peasant life. For in- 
stance, Thomas and Znaniecki explain at length the interest of the 
Polish peasant in the process rather than the results of work and add: 
“When hired work begins to develop, there gradually enters a new 
motive—that of wages. But the essential attitude is not changed. 
It is for the process not for the results of work that . . . the hired 
labourer, even the factory workman, considers himself to be paid.” ® 

The principal objection to the theory of the rural heritage as an im- 
portant determinant of national psychology is that attitudes similar to 
rural in business, trade, the professions and industry may not be an 
inheritance at all but may be due to similar conditions in those occupa- 
tions which developed similar attitudes. It is true that individualism 
naturally develops wherever men start a venture in wealth getting, 
whether it is among people who live by hunting and fishing,?° or 
farmers who own and till the soil, or factory owners. But would the 
individualism of American business and industry have been as extreme 
as it has been without the influence of the traditional rural individual- 
ism? Some of the business and industrial attitudes above described 
were even contrary to the interests of business men and workmen. In- 
stinct, it may be said, explains this. As farmer boys rivalled one 
another whenever they got together in the woodlot or the field, so did 
workmen in the factory, though it was contrary to their interests. 
But does instinct really explain such cases? A careful study of the 
behaviour of employers and workmen will convince one, I think, that, 
while instinct may explain some behaviour and while some is to be ex- 
plained as an intelligent adaptation to existing conditions, a consider- 
able part can only be explained as due to underlying attitudes that were 
acquired, in the first instance, from the rural heritage. By the rural 
heritage we mean that derived from the early rural community, not 
necessarily from farmers. The entire community was affected by its 


236 RURAL HERITAGE 


isolation, though not all were farmers. However, the attitudes of 
farmers predominantly determined the social attitudes of the rural 
community. ; 

The theory of the rural heritage is an hypothesis that opens up a 
wide field of social-psychological research. Of course every school 
boy is familiar with the idea that the principles of our national life 
were handed down by our forefathers. But just what is meant by 
principles and just who the forefathers were is not definitely stated. 
From the point of view of rural psychology the question is, in how 


far were the principles determined by the attitudes and beliefs of the 


rural community as interpreted and expressed by political leaders and 
applied to particular situations that confronted the nation? Did not 
the forefathers include not only the leaders who attained national 
recognition but also the citizens in every community who exemplified 
the prevailing attitudes and beliefs? The forefathers tended to look 
on the national heritage as something to be preserved and handed down 
from generation to generation. But, as we shall see in The Expansion 
of Rural Life, that which the nation received from its predominantly 
rural population was not something that could be kept unchanged, in 
spite of the sanctity thrown about it by the well-meaning guardians: 
of American ideals. Conditions changed, and change in the rural 
heritage was inevitable. Individualism became unprofitable and had 
to give way. In this process of change, other vocations have in- 
fluenced the farmer, as well as the farmer other vocations. The co- 
operative attitude, which promises to transform rural life developed 
in other vocations before farming. Rural leaders saw business men 
organizing to raise prices and increase their profits; saw workingmen 
organizing to raise their wages. They used these arguments with 
the rank and file of still individualistic farmers. The rural popula- 
tion gave the nation its extreme individualism but the modifications of 
this attitude were initiated elsewhere and these developments are re- 
acting on rural organization, 





' 
: 
, 
: 
4 
; 


NOTES 


INTRODUCTION 


1 Williams, The Foundations of Social Science, 47-48; Williams, Principles of 
Social Psychology, Bk. III. 

2The best introduction to this interpretation of American society is Dr. Charles 
A. Beard’s epoch-making books, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution 
of the United States and Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. See also 
his brilliant little book, The Economic Basis of Politics. 


CHAPTER I 


1Fourteenth Census Reports, V: Ch. XIV. 

2The sources of these statistics are as follows: For England and Wales, 
Preliminary Census Report, England and Wales, 1921, pp. 5, 6; Canada Yearbook, 
1921, p. 115; Statesman’s Yearbook, 1923. For Germany, Statistisches Reichamt, 
Oct. 3, 1921-22; Statistisches Jahrbuch fiir das Deutsches Reich, 1921-22, p. 14. For 
France, The French Yearbook, 1919, p. 174; Report on Economic Conditions in 
France, March, 1923, p. 103. For Poland, Annuaire Statistique de la Republique 
Polonaise, 1920-1921; Statesman’s Yearbook, 1923. For Sweden, Sverige’s Statistik 
Arsbok, 1923, p. 5. For Denmark, Danmark’s Statistik Aarbog, 1923, p. 1. For 
Russia, Russian Annuaire Statistique, 1918-20, Tome VIII, Copy 1, p. 2. For 
Japan and India, Sherwood Eddy, The New World of Labor, 40, 77. 

3 Butterfield, Chapters in Rural Progress, 201. 

4Bryce, The American Commonwealth, II: 293. 

5In most of the countries of continental Europe, up to the time of the World 
War, the farm tenant, no matter how thrifty he was, had little chance of becoming 
a farm owner. The peasant held his farm on'a long lease. Except in Russia this 
condition was not greatly changed by the war. For an intimate view of the life 
of the peasant in France see Guillaumin, The Life of a Simple Man and Roupnel, 
Nono: Love and the Soil. Fora picture of the peasants of Lithuania see Kobrin, 
A Lithuanian Village; of the peasants of Russia, Poole, The Village: Russian 
Impressions; of the Scandinavian farmer, Hamsun, The Growth of the Soil; of 
the English peasant, Heath, British Rural Life and Lobor and Rowntree, How the 
Laborer Lives; of the Rumanian peasant, Slavici, Die Rumdnen; of the Polish 
peasant, Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America. 

6In Europe they are smaller than in the United States and in Japan and China 
are excessively small. (Clarke, Japan at First Hand, 16; Nitobé, The Japanese 
Nation, 212; Ross, The Changing Chinese, 301-302.) 

TEddy, The New World of Labor, Chs. J-III. 

8 Thomas and Znaniecki, The Polish Peasant in Europe and America, I: 156, 
189-204. 

® Sims, A Hoosier Village, Columbia University Studies, Vol. XLVI, No. 4, Chs. 
V-VI. 

10 The building of railroads was going on at the same time in the middle 
west and was working the same change there. (Thompson and Warber, Social and 

237 


238 NOTES 


Economic Survey of a Rural Township in Southern Minnesota, Univ. of Minn., 
16, 21.) 

11 Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., I: 189. 

12 Ibid. I: 156. 


CHAPTER II 


1 Williams, The Foundations of Social Science, 446. 

2 Tbid. 435. 

3 For a list of the village weeklies of New York State see American Newspaper 
Annual and Directory, 1924, 672-762. 

4 Atwood, The Country Newspaper, 2; Atwood, The Country Weekly in New 
York State. Cornell Reading Course for the Farm, Lesson 155, pp. 283, 288, 316-317. 


CHAPTER III 


1For a concise account of the physical geography of New York see Fippin, 
Rural New York, Ch. I. 

2Fippin, Rural New York, 1921; Turner, The Holland Purchase of Western 
New York, 1849; Eastman, History of the State of New York, 1830; Mather and 
Brockett, A Geographical History of the State of New York, 1849. 

3 Fippin, op. cit., 56-63. 

4 Fippin, op. cit., 65-69; Farrand, The Basis of American History, 27-32; Eastman, 
History of New York, 323-324, 359-363; Mather and Brockett, Geographical His- 
tory of New York, 95-90. 

5 Mather and Brockett, op. cit., 119. 

®In Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century the peasants lived likewise 
in isolated villages. Every peasant farm produced almost exclusively for itself, 
only to the most limited extent for exchange. (Von Hupka, Ueber die Entwicklung 
der westgalizischen Dortzustande, 388 ff.) In India, also, the rural village was an 
isolated community until after 1900. The recent changes in the peasant life of 
India are due to the passing of this isolation. (Mann, Land and Labor in a Deccan 
Village, 150-155; Mann and Kanitkar, Land and Labor in a Deccan Village, Study 
No. 2, 157-168.) 

7Our typical town, in 1845, had the following industries: four gristmills, four 
sawmills, one brick and tile factory, one tannery, two distilleries, one potash works, 
one malt factory, one woollen factory, two organ factories, one shoe factory, one 
foundry, three smelting furnaces, two machine shops. In 1875, some of these 
had disappeared but factories of other kinds had appeared. In 1900, there were 
three gristmills, one sawmill, one brick and tile factory, one foundry, one creamery, 
one milk station. In 1924, there was one knitting mill, one sawmill, one print shop, 
one foundry, one canning factory, one milk station. Thus the small factories had 
largely disappeared. 

In 1845 artisans were found in every rural neighbourhood of our typical town. 
In 1900 there were artisans in only one of the eleven rural neighbourhoods. 

In our typical town the settlers of each neighbourhood were more intimately 
related to each other than to the families of other neighbourhoods. Statistics 
gathered by an old resident give the relationship of most of the early families 
of eight of the twelve neighbourhoods and in all of these eight, one-half or more 
of the families whose relationship was known were related to some other family 
in the neighbourhood. 

® Through proximity previous to immigration as well as through kinship the 


NOTES 239 


settlers of each neighbourhood of our typical town were more intimate with each 
other than with other neighbourhoods. We have information as to place of emigra- 
tion of most of the families of ten of the twelve neighbourhoods and in all these 
neighbourhoods most of the families came from the same county in New England, 
and, in some cases, from the same village or city as another family of the 
neighbourhood. 

10 Sanderson and Thompson, The Social Areas of Otsego County, Agric. Exp. 
Station of Cornell Univ., Bulletin 422, 26-27. The same is true in western states. 
See Kolb, Rural Primary Groups, Bulletin 51 of Agric. Exp. Station of Wisconsin. 

11 Sanderson and Thompson, op. cit., 28. 

12 At first churches were built in the open country at points that were convenient 
for the members. As the villages grew, the tendency was to build churches in the 
villages and the country churches were closed. Churches must be at central points 
in order to enlist as large a number of people as possible in their support. In our 
typical town a Congregational church with its meeting house at The Center was 
founded in 1796, and a Baptist church with its meeting house at Blankville in 1801. 
These were the only two churches in the town until 1823 when, as a result of a 
split in the Congregational Church, a Presbyterian church was founded with its 
meeting house at Blankville. The Congregational was exclusively a church of the 
rural neighbourhoods, the Presbyterian was made up largely of Blankville members, 
while the membership of the Baptist was about evenly divided between the rural 
neighbourhoods and Blankville. In 1835 a Methodist Episcopal church was founded 
and it had its meeting house at Blankwell in 1847-1857, after that at Blankville. 
Before the Civil War all the churches of the town had become located in Blankville. 
In addition to those named there was an Episcopal church, founded in 1840, a 
Roman Catholic, founded in 1850, and a Welsh Congregational, founded in 1852. 
All the above churches were still in existence in 1923. As to the distribution of 
this church membership, at first the families of a neighbourhood tended largely or 
wholly to belong to the same church. But by 1845, as a result of the shifting of 
population and of new families coming in, in only two of the twelve neighbourhoods 
did all the church-going families attend the same church. Of course if neighbours 
belonged to the same church they had that much more in common. On the other 
hand the factional quarrels in a church often divided neighbours, in which case 
neighbours were on more friendly terms if they belonged to different churches. 


CHAPTER IV 


1Fippin, Rural New York, 41-55. 

2Calhoun, A Social History of the American Family, I: 183. 

8 Fippin, op. cit., 50-54. 

4 Professor Sims noted in Indiana a tendency to impulsive behaviour and emo- 
tional religion among people in the less fertile agricultural sections. (Sims, A 
Hoosier Village, 141-143.) 

5 Flint, Recollections of the Past Ten Years (1826), 200-203; Trollope, North 
America, I: 45; Turner, The Significance of the Frontier in American History, 
Proceed. of Forty-first Annual Meeting of State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 
Reprint, 11-13; Turner, The Rise of the New West, 85-02. 

® Thompson and Warber, Social and Economic Survey of a Rural Township in 
Southern Minnesota, Studies in Economics, No. 1, University of Minnesota, 4. 

7 Ibid. 4. 

8 Williams, The Foundations of Social Science, 99. 


240 NOTES 


CHAPTER V 


1 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 87, 92. 

2 Ibid. 80. 

8 Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., I: 174. 

4 Williams, op. cit. Chs. V—-XI. 

5 Ibid. 53-55. 

6 Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, 73, 83. 

7 The occurrence of unfavourable weather conditions is a risk that must be recog- 
nized by successful farmers. It is said that in case of unfavourable conditions the 
occurrence of which follows the “normal law of frequency” as, for instance, the 
occurrence of frosts, the risk may be determined with a fair degree of accuracy and 
farmers can profit by these forecasts of experts. (Reed and Tolly, Weather as a 
Business Risk in Farming, Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 44, p. 354.) 

8 Stuart, The Potato, 21, 80. 

® For a description of the processes by which the Weather Bureau arrives at its 
predictions see Smith, Speaking of the Weather, Yearbook of the United States 
Department of Agriculture, 1920, 181-202. He shows that the Bureau gives predic- 
tions as to the temperature, the direction of the wind, the precipitation—whether 
fair, cloudy or rain—as to danger from storms, floods, early or late frosts. These 
predictions enable farmers to take precautions to avoid losses that would otherwise 
be enormous. 

10 Humphreys, Some Useful Weather Proverbs, Yearbook of the Department of 
Agriculture, 1912, 373-382; Garriott, Weather Folk-Lore and Local Weather Signs, 
U. S. Weather Bureau, Bulletin 33, 5-47; Cathrop, The Charm of Gardens, Ch. X. 

11In this connection it is interesting that the Hebrew Sabbath, from which our 
Sunday developed, was originally a moon festival that came at the time of the new 
moon and the full moon and, eventually at other phases of the moon, that is, about 
every seven days. Changes in the moon, particularly the appearance of the new 
moon and the rise of the full moon, caused great interest and some apprehension. 
The custom of observing the Sabbath by abstinence from work was a result of ap- 
prehension. It was felt to be best to be quiet and not work at those critical times. 
(Webster, Rest Days, 248-253.) Easter also is related to the moon in that it comes 
after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. Among the ancients the 
festival of the full moon was a solemn occasion as marking the transition to the 
waning moon. (Jastrow, The Civilizations of Babylonia and Assyria, 204, 279.) 


CHAPTER VI 


1 Calhoun, op. cit., I: Chs. ITI-IX. 
2Tbid. I: 180-183. 


8 Ibid. I: 174. 
4Tbid. I: 183. 

5 Ibid. I: 37-39. 
®Tbid. I: 39-40. 
TTbid. I: 41. 

8 Ibid. I: 4r. 


®Tbid. I: 51. 

10 Ibid. I: 56-57. 
11Tbid. I: 54-55. 
12Tbid. I: 52, 67-78. 
13 Tbid. I: 55. 





EE 


| 


NOTES 241 


14 Thid. I: 71. 
15 Thid. I: 78. 
16 Tbid. I: 79. 
17 Tbid. I: 80. 


CHAPTER VII 


1“Nearly all of New York State was originally heavily timbered. ... Hard- 
wood made up nearly all of the tree flora.... There were a few prairie tracts 
mostly in river bottoms. At Mt. Morris, in the Genesee River flats, was’ a 
prairie of 6,000 acres....On Long Island around Hempstead and Jamaica was 
a large prairie tract on well drained soil... .” (Fippin, Rural New York, 74.) The 
Indians had large farms on these prairie stretches. They also cleared and culti- 
vated fields adjacent to their villages. (Ibid. 50.) 

2 Calhoun, A Social History of the American Family, II: 162. 

3Tbid. II: 161. 

4See sketches of Robert Glover and Calvin Griffiths, pioneers of Iowa, by John 
Somerville, a pioneer with those men, in the Manson Journal, June 14, and July 5, 
1923. 

5 Wilson, The Evolution of the Country Community, Ch. I. 

® Turner, The Holland Purchase of Western New York, 325-645. 

7 Calhoun, op. cit., II: 8o. 

® Roberts, Autobiography of a Farm Boy, 24. 

® This is true in the West, also. (Lindquist, What Farm Women are Thinking, 
University of Minnesota, Agric. Ext. Div., Special Bulletin, No. 71, 11.) 

107n Europe also the woman has been valued according to her capacity for 
work. (Kobrin, A Lithuanian Village, 151.) 


CHAPTER VIII 


1 This was the custom throughout rural America. (Calhoun, A Social History 
of the American Family, II: Ch. I.) 

2 The Roman Catholic Church through the confessional has exerted an immense 
influence in preventing any practice that had to do with limiting the number of 
children. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit. IV: 104-106.): 

8 Large families continue the rule in many rural parts of the country to-day. 
(Phelan, Readings in Rural Sociology, 319.) 

4Calhoun, op. cit., II: 15. 

5 Tbid. IL: 107. 

® This is true in Europe to this day. (Von Hupka, Ueber die Entwicklung der 
westgalizischen Dorfzustande, 368-71.) 

7 Calhoun, op. cit., II: 150. 

8 Ibid. I: 92-95. 

®Tbid. II: gs. 

10 Tbid. IL: 80; Westermarck, The Origin and Development of Moral Ideas, I: 
654-062; Sumner, Folkways, 357-372. 

11 Calhoun, op. cit., II: 106-107. 

12 Cather, One of Ours, 193. 

18 Calhoun, op. cit., Il; 119-120; Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 278. 

14 Calhoun, op. cit., II: 87. 

15Tbid. II: 11-12. 

16'This is true in European nations to-day. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., 
I: 93.) 

17Calhoun, op. cit., II: 81. 


242 NOTES 


18 Tpid. II: 82. 
19 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, Ch, XVIII. 


CHAPTER IX 


1 Calhoun, op. cit, I: Ch. VI. 

2 Ibid. I: 47. 

3 Ibid. I: 47. 

4Ibid. I: 153. 

5 Simkhowitsch, Die Feldgemeinschaft in Russland, 364. 

6 Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., IV: 21-22. 

7 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 366. 

8 Calhoun, op. cit., II: 53. 

* Ibid. -II: 52. 

10 Tbid. II: 137. 

11Tn European nations where the influence of the older generations over the 
young couple is stronger than in rural America, this attitude of the woman has been 
an important factor in family individuation. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit. I: 
97-08.) 

12 This is characteristic of European agricultural communities to-day. (Krauss, 
Sitte und Brauch der Siidslaven, 103.) 

13 This tendency is seen in European rural communities. (Yon Hupka, Ueber 
die Entwicklung der westgalizischen Dorfzustande, 388 f.) 

14In European nations to-day the children have this attitude toward a rebellious 
one among them. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit. I: 91.) 

15 Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., II: 183. 

16 Tpid. II: 183. 

17 Ibid. II: 185. 

18 Tbid. I: rot. 

19 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, Ch. XX. 

20 This development is seen also in European nations. (Thomas and Znaniecki, 
op. cit, I: 105; IV: Pt. I, Chs. II-V, Pt. II, Chs. ILI-VI.)j 


CHAPTER XI 


1 Calhoun, op. cit., I: 46. 

2 Calhoun, op. cit., I: 281. 

3 Mavor, Economic History of Russia, II: 259. 

4Ibid. II: 258. 

5Tbid. II: 271. 

6 Roberts, The Autobiography of a Farm Boy, 40-45. 

7 The peasants of Europe seem to be a good deal lacking in generous impulses 
due, probably, to the suppression of these because of their oppression by landlords. 
(Slavici, Die Rumianen, 140-150.) 


CHAPTER XII 


1Fippin, Rural New York, 74-76. 
2 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 230-238. 
8 Reed, Training for the Public Profession of the Law, 83-85. 


CHAPTER XIII 


1 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 90-01. 
2 Calhoun, op. cit., I]: 222. 





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NOTES 243 


CHAPTER XIV 
1 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 31, 64. 


CHAPTER XV 


1 European rural populations differ in this respect. The Russian peasants are 
more mystical and less practical in religion than the Polish peasants. (Thomas 
and Znaniecki, op. cit. I: 287; IV: 154.) 

2 People who are ecstatically religious are not apt to be successful farmers. 
They are apt to be found on the poorer farms. Being on poor farms in turn en- 
courages people to leave their work for religious exercises whenever fancy strikes 
them, for they have not the incentive to persistent work that a man has who pos- 
sesses a fine farm. Not only adverse physical conditions but also unfavourable 
social conditions of the farmer, as the oppression of tenants and labourers by a land- 
lord class, encourages strange religious ideas and practices. (Stern, Geschichte der 
offentlichen Sittlichkeit in Russland, I: 248.) It encourages also a fatalistic 
religion. (Bernhard, Die Polenfrage, 556-57; Hupka, Ueber die Entwicklung der 
westgalizischen Dortzustande, 56 f., 275 f.) 

8In all nations was, and still is found this nervousness about the masses. In 
Russia, even before the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, when some landlords 
were building factories on their estates and taking their serfs from the rural 
villages to live around the factories, the government and the landowners were 
nervous about this grouping of masses of peasants in close quarters where they 
might stir up one another. For this reason the landowners frowned on the 
growth of factory industry in Russia and even opposed the building of railways 
because they “only encourage frequent and unnecessary travelling, and in this 
way increase the instability of the spirit of our epoch.” (Mavor, An Economic 
History of Russia, I: 561.) The rise and development of democratic government 
only increased this nervousness in the nations of Europe and we find it among the 
landowners in “free America’ where, because the masses had the vote, religion 
was particularly relied on to keep the masses down. In Europe and in the United 
States the Roman Catholic Church most effectively exercised this function, both 
because it was the church to which the most feared masses belonged and because 
the clergy required unthinking submission to dogma, which attitude was felt to 
conduce to “law and order.” So the Protestant farmer both disliked the Catholic 
Church and relied on it to keep the masses down. 

4 Roberts, op. cit., 74-75. 

5 Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., I: 300-301. 


CHAPTER XVII 


1In other parts of the world, also, this seems to have been the relation of the 
schoolmaster to the community. (Matthai, Village Government in British India, 


49.) 
CHAPTER XVIII 


1¥For instance, Mr. Stuart, horticulturalist of the Bureau of Plant Industry of 
the U. S. Department of Agriculture writes me that of all the men in the United 
States named by him in his book, The Potato, as instrumental in improving the 
varieties of potatoes, all but two were farmers. 


2 Trowbridge, My Own Story, Ch. I. 
8 Bernard, A Theory of Rural Attitudes, Amer. Jour. Sociol., XXII: 634. 


244 NOTES 
* The tendency to feel wronged, to seek vengeance and to litigate is pronounced 
in European rural populations. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit, IV: 19.) 


CHAPTER XIX 


1 Williams, The Foundations of Social Science, 117. 
2 Roberts, The Autobiography of a Farm Boy, 23. 

8 Mavor, An Economic History of Russia, II: 261. 
*Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., II: 63. 

5 Wallace, Russia, 464. 


CHAPTER XX 


1 Roberts, The Autobiography of a Farm Boy, 35.- 


CHAPTER XXIII 


1Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., III: 56. 

2Leaders in rural progress in Europe aim to sanction new progressive attitudes 
by identifying them with some attractive political purpose or religious idea. 
(Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., IV: 268, 334.), 

8 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 15. 

4Calhoun, op. cit. III: 132. 

SIbid. II: 55-63. 

® Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, Ch. XIV. 

7™The Journal of John Woolman, 53. 

8 This is true in Europe as well as in the United States. For instance, in Poland 
the Catholic priest is a very egoistic person and finds egoistic attitudes not un- 
congenial. “The standard of living of the priest is on the average much higher 
than that of a peasant-farmer. Moreover, many priests, particularly those of 
peasant origin, consider their profession a career made for the benefit of their 
families and exploit their flock rather ruthlessly. As long as the prestige of the 
priest remains unchallenged the peasants interpret his economic demands as neces- 
sarily resulting from his position, and the honour of the parish community seems 
to require that its priest be at least as well-to-do as other priests, just as it 
requires a church building of a certain size and aesthetic perfection. But, of course, 
along with this standard there always existed the opposite standard of simplicity 
and disinterestedness, which some of the clergy applied in their behaviour. This 
standard has been lately more and more popularized by the democratic propaganda,” 
and there has developed among the clergy a movement to make the behaviour of 
the priests conform to the new popular requirements. (Thomas and Znaniecki, op. 
cit. IV: 155-156.) 


CHAPTER XXV 


1 Williams, Principles of Social Psychology, 120. 
2Hamilton and May, The Control of Wages, 41. 

3 Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management, 33-35. 
4Tbid. Ch. II. Williams, op. cit., 169n. 

5 Williams, op. cit., Ch. XV. 

6 Ibid. 234-235. 

THamilton and May, op. cit., 14-15. 

8 Williams, op. cit., 87, 92. 

® Thomas and Znaniecki, op. cit., I: 174. 

10 Goldenweiser, Early Civilization, 409-410. 





INDEX 


Acquisitiveness, 7, 31, 81, 106-197, 20I- 
202, 204, 207-208, 214-215, 227. 

Aesthetic attitudes, 149, 150, 172-173, 
206, 218, 224. 

Agricultural work, 5, 6, 32, 36-38, 42, 
50-52, 54, 82-84, 86-89, 159-161, 166, 
192-194, 219, 221. 

Argumentation, 148-149, 166-168. 

Assertiveness, 7, 122, 166, 201-208. 

Attitudes, Introduction, 1; social a., 9, 
10; nature of, 10, 32, 199-200, 213- 
214. 


Beliefs, 9, I0, 130. 
Business attitude, compared with farm- 


er’s, 37, 41, 44-45, 97, 229-230. 


Climate, effect of, on attitudes, 25, 26. 

Competition, 98. 

Co-operation, 4, 5, 7, 94-97. 

Courage, 94. 

Custom, adherence to, 3, 6, 7, 51, 164, 
Ch. XXI, 221, 222; departure from, 
4, 8, 28-31; basis of legal interpreta- 
tion, 74. 


Doctor, attitudes of, 105-108, 232. 
Domination, 47-48, 52-53, 56, 58, 60-67, 
69, 71, 95, 186, 203, 214. 


Economic attitudes, Ch. XI, 136, 228. 

Economic interpretation, Introduction, 
a ea Gh.) XV. 

Education, 36, 66, Ch. XVII, 224. 

Equality, III-112, 174, 203, 228. 


Familiarity, sense of, 71, 162. 

Family attitudes, Chs. VI-IX, 135-136. 

Family solidarity, 48-49, 72, 78-80. 

Fearfulness, 130, 135, 196. 

Fertility, effect of, on attitudes, 26; 
maintenance of, 28. 

Formulas, 33, 42-44, 168-160, 175-176, 
188. 

Freedom of speech, 170. 


Games, 35, 115-116. 
Generosity, 95, 204. 
Gossip, 117-118. 


History, material of, Introduction, 1, 
2; interpretation of, 2. 

Flonesty, 98, 211. 

Honor, 99. 

Humor, Ch. XIV, 203. 


Indecision, 32, 38-39. 

Independence, 32, 38, 70, 90, 131, 162, 
169, 192, 205, 206, 221. 

Individualism, 4, 5, 7, 51, 54-55, 57, 59 
60, 74-77, 98, IOI, 229-231, 233, 236. 

Industry, 35-38, 52-53, 87-88. 

Inheritance, 69. 

Intellectual attitudes, 7, 8, 10, 38-40, 
156; Ch. XVIII, 188-189, 225. 

Isolation, 32, 38, 56, 66, 70-71, 74, 78, 
IIQ, 161-163, 192-193, 197, 200, 221, 
235. 


Law, as related to the family, 59; re- 
spect for, 72, 174-177; function of, 
178-184, 228. 

Lawyer, attitudes of, 108-109, 232. 

Leadership, Introduction, 3, 185-187, 204. 

Liberty, 84, 85, 174. 


Loyalty, 71, 79, 143, 186-187, I91, 195, 


211-212, 


Manufacturer, attitudes of, 103-104. 
Moon, attitudes to, 42-44. 
Mystery, sense of, 42, 128-130. 


Optimism, 41. 
Orthodoxy, 146-147. 


Partisanship, 185-191, 204, 228. 
Patriotism, IQI, 204. 

Persistence, 87. 

Political attitudes, 36-37, 68, Ch. XX. 
Progress, Introduction, 3, 213. 
Property rights, 89, 93, 231. 

Public opinion, Introduction, 1. 
Pugnacity, 92-93. 


Religion, 36, 40, 47, 53; 56-57, 59, 66-67, 
72, 123, Chs. XV-XVI, 204, 216-220, 
223-224. 

Reserve, 32, 170-171. 


Resignation, 27, 33, 137-138, 234. 
245 


246 


Resistfulness, 205-206. 

Risk, 34, 40. 

Rivalry, Introduction, 2, pp. 7, 8, 20, 
75-76, 124-127, 196-197, 227, 233-235. 

Rural community, nature of, 12, 13, 17, 
TOR LLL, 72, 

Rural development, 
theory of, 3-8. 

Rural neighborhood, 21-24, 100-101. 

Rural newspaper, 14, I5. 

Rural population, 1. 

‘Rural social psychology, methods of, 
Introduction, 1," 2; iCGh., I,’ 325., im- 
portance of, Introduction, 4, 5, pp. I, 
2; sources of, 2, 13-16; relation of, to 
urban psychology, 2, II, 32. 

Rural survey, 13. 


Introduction, 1; 


Scientific attitude, 
farmer’s a., 37-38. 

Sectarianism, 141-143, 194-195, 204. 

Self-reliance, 71, 85. 

melierestraint, 265) 26, aa nweg ea Br! 
88-91, 175, 195-196, 211-213, 226. 


compared with 


INDEX 


Sexual morality, 47, 57-58, 61. 

Sincerity, 99. 

Social classes, III-I15. 

Social conflict, Ch. XXIII. 

Social consciousness, Ch. XXIII. 

Society and the individual, 9-11, Ch. 
XXII. 

Speculation, 30. 

Storekeeper, attitudes of, 104-105, 232. 

Sympathy, 7, 8, 119-122, 202, 203, 206, 
208, 214-220, 222, 223. 


Thrift, 31, 90-92. 

Topography, psychological effect of, 26- 
28, 30-31. 

Transmutation of attitudes, 41, 72-73, 97, 
228. 

Truthfulness, go. 


Uncertainty, 33-36, 38-30, 42, 192. 


Weather, psychological effects of, Ch. 
V, 135, 162, 192-193, 221, 222. 


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